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Biography:

Associate Professor James Vaughan is the Chemical Engineering Metallurgy Major Lead and Leader of the Hydrometallurgy Research Group. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgical Engineering at McGill University followed by Master of Applied Science and PhD degrees in Materials Engineering at The University of British Columbia in Canada. Before joining UQ, James gained industrial metallurgical process research and development experience with Glencore, Barrick and BHP. While at UQ, James served as Director of the University of Queensland Rio Tinto Bauxite & Alumina Technology Centre and has been Lead Chief Investigator of Australian Research Council Linkage and Discovery Projects. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and the Advanced Materials and Batteries Council (AMBC).

Research:

James' research focuses on the fundamental aspects of leaching, ion exchange and precipitation reactions as well as membrane separations. These projects are of interest to the base metals, precious metals and alumina refining industries as well as in the fabrication of value added materials such as lithium ion battery cathode precursors and zeolites.

Current Projects:

1. Extracting Queensland's rare earth elements sustainably (Queensland Department of Resources)
2. Copper process innovations (UniQuest)
3. New approach for producing zeolites from clay or mine tailings (Zeotech)
4. Inorganic membrane percrystallisation in hydrometallurgy (ARC Discovery)
5. Improving pressure oxidation for refractory gold (Newmont)
6. Effects of solution impurities on gold leaching (Newmont and BHP ARC Linkage)
7. Recycling vanadium catalyst (QEM Critical Minerals Trailblazer)
8. Purification of battery metal solution (Lanxess Critical Minerals Trailblazer)
9. Recycling batteries (V Resource)

Teaching and Learning:

• Hydrometallurgy and Electrometallurgy (METL6204)
• Metal Production and Recycling (METL2201)

Dr Verdi's research is in the field of computational materials physics. Her work employs first-principles or ab initio methods, complemented by machine learning techniques, to predict and understand physical properties of materials without relying on empirical models. For more information, visit the research group website.

She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2017. After working at the University of Oxford and the University of Vienna, Dr Verdi moved to the University of Sydney in 2023 as an ARC DECRA Fellow. In the same year, she then joined UQ as a Lecturer in Condensed Matter Physics. She is an associate investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC).

Her current research focuses on understanding the structural, optical and thermodynamic properties of atomic defects for applications in quantum technologies. She is also interested in studying the influence of atomic vibrations, defects, temperature and disorder on the intrinsic properties of various functional materials that can be exploited for novel technologies. Feel free to reach out to Dr Verdi if you are interested in simulating materials properties from first principles using supercomputers and exploring how this can help develop better materials.

My research interests are centred around the structure and function of venom and silk polypeptides produced by arthropods, and their use in biotechnology and medicine. I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the King laboratory in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the University of Queensland, Australia. Currently, I am investigating the composition, function and evolution of neglected insect venoms produced by assassin bugs (Hemiptera: Reduviidae), robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae) and nettle caterpillars (Lepidoptera: Limacodidae).

Liguang Wang obtained his PhD from Virginia Tech (Supervisor: Roe-Hoan Yoon). His research focus is mineral processing and metal extraction for the transition to renewable energy. He was honoured with the ACARP Research and Industry Excellence Award in 2022.

More details from the lab website.

Fully funded PhD project: We are seeking a domestic student working on sustainable production of lithium minerals, which is supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant. Web link for the scholarship: https://study.uq.edu.au/study-options/phd-mphil-professional-doctorate/projects/sustainable-beneficiation-lithium-minerals

Educated at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Australian National University, Canberra. Career at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Universität Marburg, Germany. Professor and Chair of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Organic Chemistry Section, The University of Queensland from 1985. Emeritus professor from 2008. Chair of the National Committee for Chemistry of the Australian Academy of Science 2009-2014. Editor-in-Chief, Australian Journal of Chemistry 2008-15. Editor, Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis (Elsevier, IF 3.65) 2016-. Visiting Professor Université de Pau, France, 2011-19; Visiting Professor University of Kuwait 2014-18; Visiting Professor / Special Appointed Professor Hiroshima University 2014-18. Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth 2003 for research in organic and physical chemistry. David Craig Medal of the Academy of Science 2014 for research in chemistry. JSPS Fellowship (Japan) 2014. Honorary doctorate, University of Pau, France, 2014. A.J. Birch Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) for ecellence in research in organic chemistry, 2014. Leighton Medal of the RACI 2018.

Research on Unusual Molecules and Reactive Intermediates: Synthesis and Reaction Mechanism. Heterocyclic chemistry. Pyrolysis reactions. Photochemistry

Research in the Wentrup group is concerned with the discovery of novel types of molecules with new and unusual bonding patterns. Such molecules are mostly highly reactive, and special methods are required both for their generation and for their detection. The group has developed these methods over many years and acquired world-class equipment for these purposes, including flash vacuum thermolysis apparatus, cryostats for matrix isolation of reaction products at cryogenic temperatures (down to 7 K), matrix and solution photochemistry equipment, infrared, UV and mass spectrometers, as well as modern computational facilities.

This research has resulted in the synthesis and characterization of many novel compounds, including extended cumulenes of the types RN=C=C=C=X, which themselves are used in the synthesis of many novel types of molecules, some of them of potential pharmaceutical interest (quinolone antibiotics; diazepines).

The research group has a world reputation in the field of carbene and nitrene chemistry, involving reactive intermediates with sextet carbon or nitrogen. These species are also very useful in synthesis, for example in the preparation of diazepines and diazepinones, a family of pharmaceutically interesting compounds. Numerous mechanistic studies and synthetic applications of ketenes have been carried out in our group.

Active collaborations are ongoing with scientists in Australia (UQ and CSIRO), China (Suzhou), France (Pau), Germany (Oldenburg), Japan (Hiroshima), Spain (Donostia - San Sebastian), and Portugal (Coimbra).

Professor White is Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Engineered Quantum Systems, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, and leads the Quantum Technology Laboratory at UQ, which he established in 1999. He is internationally recognised for research in quantum science and technology, and is interested in all aspects of quantum weirdness. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Physical Society, and Optica. Andrew’s research spans: quantum foundations; production, manipulation and exploitation of quantum states of light, both in conventional optics and nanophotonics; and utilising quantum technology, be it in quantum computation, quantum communication, quantum sensing, or neuromorphic computing. Details can be found at the Quantum Laboratory website.

Professor White has worked with twenty-one postdoctoral researchers since 2001, five of whom received ARC Discovery Early Career Researchers Awards whilst working in his lab, six receiving Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships subsequently and one a Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship. He has supervised more than 40 postgraduate students, who have received an array of awards including a Rhodes Scholarship, three Springer PhD thesis prizes, Australian representative at the Lindau Nobel Meeting, the only-ever runner for the Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Medal, and UQ Medals and Valedictorian, to name but a few.

Bio: Andrew was raised in a Queensland dairy town, before heading south to the big smoke of Brisbane to study chemistry, maths, physics and, during the World Expo, the effects of alcohol on uni students from around the world. Deciding he wanted to know what the cold felt like, he first moved to Canberra, then Germany—completing his PhD in quantum physics—before moving on to Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico where he quickly discovered that there is more than enough snow to hide a cactus, but not nearly enough to prevent amusing your friends when you sit down. Over the years he has conducted research on various topics including shrimp eyes, nuclear physics, optical vortices, and quantum computers. He likes quantum weirdness for its own sake, but his current research aims to explore and exploit the full range of quantum behaviours—notably entanglement—with an eye to engineering new technologies and scientific applications. He is currently Director of the Centre of Engineered Quantum Systems, an Australia-wide, 14-year long, research effort by more than 250 scientists to build quantum machines that harness the quantum world for practical applications.

Professor Andrew Whittaker is Senior Group Leader and founder member of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN). He directs research funded through more than $61.3 million in competitive grants since 2000 and $39.7M since 2010. Professor Whittaker’s work in synthesis and characterisation of polymeric materials has underpinned major development programs in several key areas.

His work in the field of materials for photolithography has been supported by funding from leading semiconductor companies Intel, Sematech, Dow Chemical Company and DuPont. Outcomes include novel high-index resists for 193 nm immersion lithography, new concepts for design of non-chemically amplified resists for EUV lithography, novel approaches to healing roughness in IC features and block copolymer self-assembly.

In the field of biomaterials science and nanomedicine, Professor Whittaker has established a network of international scientists under the theme “Bringing Materials to Life”. He is active in developing novel imaging agents for MRI, and has introduced a new class of 19F polymeric agents. He leads research into responsive polymers for nanomedicine and for device manufacture. His work on polymeric hydrogels including transport properties is highly cited.

Finally, Professor Whittaker is an expert in the fundamentals of diffusion process in complex solids and has an international reputation in the field of NMR and MRI of polymeric systems.

International links

Professor Whittaker is a member of numerous international committees of governing bodies in polymer science and technology, and is involved in organising major international conferences. He is currently president of the Pacific Polymer Federation. He actively collaborates with scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA; Institute of Nano Science and Technology, Mohali, India; Gebze Technical University, Turkey; Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan; Jilin University, Hubei University, the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST, CAS), SUSTech and Shanghai University, China; the University of Nottingham, UK; IMEC, DuPont Electronics and Imaging, USA. He has held visiting professor positions at NCNST, INSA Lyon and NIT, was DICE Chair at the University of Nottingham, and is currently visiting professor at Hubei University.

Luke Williams is a proud Gumbaynggirr man of northern NSW. Luke’s research primarily focuses on the traditional uses of native Australian plants with an emphasis on understanding how traditionally used food plants can contribute to our modern food systems. This includes the promotion of traditional foods in Indigenous communities to improve food security and cultural wellbeing, through to supporting Indigenous businesses to lead the bush food industry, so that the nutritional and environmental benefits attributed to native plants can be enjoyed by all Australians.

Luke’s PhD looked at the dietary safety assessment of Australian native foods. He continues this line of research today where he takes a mixed method approach. This includes working with Traditional Custodians to understand their history of use with a particular plant, and then supporting consumer safety through the generation of quantitative data, such as the measurement of toxicological endpoints and various chemical analyses.

Luke sees the growing native foods industry as a culturally appropriate economic opportunity for Indigenous Peoples. However, he also understands, that if these foods are to be made available to the public, then there is a need to ensure that they are safe for general consumption.

Craig M. Williams was born in Adelaide, Australia. He received his B.Sc. (Hons) degree in chemistry in 1994 from Flinders University. In 1997, he was awarded his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the same institution under the supervision of Professor Rolf H. Prager. He undertook post-doctoral studies as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow working with Professor Armin de Meijere at the Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany, from 1997 to 1999. In early 1999, he accepted a second post-doctoral fellowship at the Australian National University with Professor Lewis N. Mander.

Professor Williams has held an academic position at the University of Queensland since 2000, and during this time has won a number of awards including a Thieme Chemistry Journals Award in 2007, an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship award in 2011, and the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research (SCMB, UQ, 2019). The Williams research group explores numerous interests within the discipline of organic chemistry (e.g. medicinal chemistry, fundamental molecules, natural productisolation, microelectronics, drug and agrichemical development, impact sensitive molecules) enabled by organic synthesis refined through the construction of biologically active complex natural products (diterpenes, polyketides, alkaloids), and designs synthetic methodology to assist in this endeavour (synthetic transformations and reagents). Professor Williams especially enjoys teaching whole molecule retrosynthesis to undergraduate and post-graduate students.

​Dr James Wood's research focuses primarily on the design and synthesis of organic ligands to complex inorganic radioisotopes for radiopharmaceutical applications. His work spans across the design and synthesis of these ligands, through to radiolabelling of these compounds and assessing them within animal models. He is particularly interested in applications of these ligands that grant greater flexability or utility to diagnostic and therapeutic platforms.

James works within the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacture of Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, working with industry partners to excelerate the production of novel radiopharmaceuticals.

Yuan Xu completed a Bachelor of Engineering degree (Chemical and Material) from the University of Queensland in 2015. After that, he started his PhD in the research field of colloidal science, rheology and chemical engineering, supervised by Professor Jason Stokes. He has continued in UQ as postdoctoral research fellow since 2019, at which, he has contributed to multidisciplinary projects including viscoelastic lubrication of soft matter systems, and programming structural anisotropy in nanocellulose hydrogels. His research capability focuses on the area of rheology, colloidal science/ physical chemistry, material/physical science, soft matters/complex fluids, and tribology/lubrication.

I have a multidisciplinary background in chemical and civil engineering, chemistry and materials science. Currently, I am the UQ leader of the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life, based at USC. I apply my expertise to understand the effects of fungal decay and moisture intrusion in timber connections, as well as the improvement of the fire performance of timber. I supervise 6 PhD students.

I obtained my BSc.(Hons) from the University of New South Wales in Australia, then went on to pursue a PhD at the Australian National University’s Research School of Chemistry under the supervision of Professor Anthony Hill. After stints at the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh as a research fellow in groups of Andrew Weller and Polly Arnold respectively, I began my independent career at the National University of Singapore in 2014. Since then I have focused on methodology development using pincer complexes and frustrated Lewis pairs to address challenges in small molecule activation, in particular the selective activation of carbon-halide and carbon-chalcogen bonds. My achievements have been recognized with research awards including Asian Chemistry Prizes from Japan and China (2018) and the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award in 2019. In 2022 I was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship, which I assumed at the University of Queensland in mid-2023. The theme of the research for this fellowship is the recycling and repurposing of fluorocarbons through selective activation using organometallic techniques.

Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu is an internationally recognised expert in nanotechnology, chemistry and materials science. He is the author of over 400 scientific publications with over 36,000 citations. He has received National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership (L3) and Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship.

His research interest includes functional nanomaterials and their applications in healthcare, agriculture, and energy storage. He is working with industrial partners to provide innovative solutions for challenging problems in our society.

Dr. Norhasnida Zawawi is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), University of Queensland, Australia, where she contributed to the discovery of trehalulose, a rare low-GI sugar in stingless bee honey. She is currently Head of the Halal Science Laboratory at the Halal Products Research Institute and Senior Lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), leading the Halal Healthcare and Wellness Research Programme.

She has played key roles in developing honey standards, including contributions to the FSANZ-approved native bee honey standard (2024), and previously served with the Department of Standards Malaysia and Apimondia Asia. Dr. Zawawi is an Editorial Board Member of the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science and a reviewer for high-impact journals such as Food Chemistry and Journal of Apicultural Research.

With over RM 1 million in research funding, 46 Scopus-indexed publications, and an H-index of 20, her work bridges food science, halal innovation, and bee product research.

Dr. Zawawi’s future research is centred on advancing functional foods and halal-certified bioactive products, with a strong emphasis on native bee honey and plant-based milk alternatives. Her goals include:

• Exploring bioactive compounds and unique compositions of stingless bee honey, plant seed beverages, and other alternative foods to enhance human health.
• Integrating omics technologies to identify molecular markers of efficacy and quality in halal-certified functional foods.
• Promoting sustainable innovation in the halal wellness industry through translational research and commercialisation pathways.
• Expanding global collaborations to support cross-disciplinary research in food science, nutrition, and halal product development.

These goals reflect her commitment to bridging traditional knowledge with cutting-edge science, enhancing public health, and supporting the growth of the native bee honey and halal food industries worldwide.

Xiuwen Zhou received her PhD in 2014 from the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she worked with Prof Tomasz A. Wesolowski, who is recognized as the co-inventor of Frozen-Density Embedding Theory (FDET) alongside Nobel laureate Prof. Arieh Warshel (co-winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry). Then she moved to the University of Queensland (UQ) as a visiting scholar, supported by two awarded fellowships, i.e., a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2015) and an Australian-APEC Women in Research Fellowship (2016). She then took up a UQ Development Fellowship in 2017, working as a teaching and research fellow at UQ School of Mathematics and Physics. Later, she was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (ARC DECRA) commencing in 2019.

Biography:

John Zhu is currently a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, UQ. He is also the inaugural Director of Carbon Energy Research Centre. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering, UQ in 2002, then worked as a lecturer in Curtin University of Technology from 2002 to 2004. He moved back to UQ at the end of 2004 and has been working in the same school until present. He is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships, including RK Murphy Medal 2013, Freehills Award IChemE 2011, runner up of Innovator of the Year Award International IChemE 2011, the University of Queensland Foundation Research Excellence Award 2007, an ARC Future Fellowship from 2013 to 2016, an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship from 2008 to 2012, an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2003 – 2005. In May 2012, John Zhu’s long term collaborative research with Eden Energy was recognised by Thomson Reuters Innovation Award for Innovative Collaboration between the University of Queensland and Eden Energy.

Research:

John Zhu’s research interests and expertise exist in advanced catalysis, gas adsorption and separation, direct carbon fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells with strong application focus on clean energy and environment. His current projects include research into scale up of direct carbon fuel cells, next generation solid oxide fuel cells, hierarchically-structured bulk materials for gas storage and catalytic reaction, carbon nanotubes/MOFs composite membranes, carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composites for automotive applications, advanced plasma-assisted catalytic processes for clean energy production and air pollution control.

Teaching and Learning:

John has taught several engineering courses including Research Methods (CHEE7200), Heat and mass transfer (CHEE3002), and Engineering investigation and analysis (CHEE3010). He is currently lecturing a third year course, Reaction Engineering (CHEE3005).

Projects:

1. Transport Processes in Flexible Porous Materials for Gas Separation and Storage, ARC DP

2. Prototype test of Direct Carbon Fuel Cells, QLD Research Partnership Program

3. Carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composites for automotive applications, ARC LP

4. Development of a Novel One Step Process for Gas Conversion to Liquid, ARC LP

5. Fundamentals and practical applications of hierarchically-structured bulk materials, ARC Future Fellowship

6. Development of novel cathodes for next generation solid oxide fuel cells, ARC DP

Dr Zyta Ziora received PhD (Wroclaw University of Science & Technology, Poland) in chemistry and has wide range of experience in development of antimalarial therapeutics (the University of Montpellier, France), antibacterial agents, enzyme inhibitors and drug candidates against Alzheimer disease (Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Japan). Her research time is currently dedicated mainly to projects devoted to the modification of existing antibiotics, and complexing them with additional antimicrobial agents, like metal ions, to produce more potent alternatives and by this to overcome the drug resistance of superbugs. She is also working on alternative to antibiotics nature-derived compounds with antimicrobial and anticancer potency, such poliphenolic derivatives to control tyrosinase function.