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Dr. Pratheep Annamalai is a polymer and nanomaterials scientist with a keen interest in engineering materials for sustainable living. He is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences. He has extensive expertise in both translational and fundamental research using nanotechnological tools towards sustainability. Currently, he is interested in alternative proteins and valorisation of agricultural crops and food waste into reactive, building blocks for improving the performance and utility of bioproducts. Thematically, his research focuses on

• Food Processing (plant-based food products)
• Bioproducts (from agri-food waste)
• Sustainable building blocks (for advanced materials).

Before joining UQ, Pratheep studied Chemistry in University of Madras, received PhD in Chemistry from University of Pune (India), then went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher on hydrophobic membranes at the Université Montpellier II (France), and on ‘stimuli-responsive smart materials’ at the Adolphe Merkle Institute - Université de Fribourg (Switzerland).

Upon being instrumental in the discovery of ‘spinifex nanofibre nanotechnology’ and establishing Australia’s first nanocellulose pilot-plant, he has been awarded UQ Excellence awards for leadership and industry partnerships for 2019. Recognising his contribution to the nanomaterials, polymer nanocomposites, polymer degradation and stabilisation regionally and globally, he has been invited to serve as a committee member for ISO/TC229-WG2 for characterisation of nanomaterials (2016), a mentor in TAPPI mentoring program (2018), guest/academic editor for various journals (Fibres, Int. J Polymer Science, PLOS One). He has served as a member of the UQ-LNR ethics committee for reviewing the applications (2017-) and a member of the AIBN-ECR committee in 2014.

Professor Tom Baldock, B.Eng, Ph.D (Lond), DIC, MIEAust.

****Ph.D. Scholarships in Coastal and Marine Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland, Australia****

Please enquire about forthcoming UQ scholarship opportunities for domestic Australian students (citizens or permanent residents) or international students who are currently in Australia.

Ph.D. projects are available on coastal processes, coral reef hydrodynamics, tsunami impacts, wave energy or a topic of your own

Professor Baldock’s research is primarily in the field of Coastal and Ocean Engineering, but also encompasses renewable energy and higher education. He has published over 120 journal papers and over 80 conference papers, notably in top-rated journals for his discipline (Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society), and is the most published author in the journal Coastal Engineering over the past decade. He is presently principal supervisor for 6 Ph.D. students, with 18 PhD students graduated since 2007, three of whom were awarded Dean’s awards, and nine have secured T&R or research positions nationally and internationally, one a full Professor. His Ph.D. students have published over 60 journal papers since 2004. They have worked on field and laboratory experiments in the UK, Europe, the USA, in association with international researchers and government agencies. Prof Baldock received a UQ Award for “Excellence in HDR Supervision” in 2017. He is currently working on a major project within the National Reef Restoration and Adaption Program (https://gbrrestoration.org/) focused on the Great Barier Reef.

He has strong national and international collaboration on research on topical issues in coastal engineering and close links with Government and National agencies, which includes consultancy and expert witness services in Marine Engineering. Recent and current relevant research projects include a multi-partner CSIRO Cluster project under the Wealth from Oceans Flagship, investigating tsunami impact on ultra-long submarine pipelines running from the deep ocean up to continental slope and then onshore, ARC Discovery, ARC Linkage and ARC LIEF projects investigating storm surge and wave run-up along the East Australian coast, and four European Union HYDRALAB IV transnational access projects to study beach erosion and recovery processes in large wave flume facilities. He is also working with Geoscience Australia on the Bushfire and Natural Hazards projects, Resilience of Coasts to Clustered storm events and with the Global Change Institute (UQ) on the World Bank project "Capturing Coral Reef Ecosystems Services".

He is a member of the Editorial Board for Coastal Engineering and a member of the Engineers Australia National Committee on Coastal and Ocean Engineering.

He was Chair of the Organising Committee for Coasts and Ports 2017, held in Cairns, June 2017

His primary research interests are in : Swash zone hydrodynamics, Beach face sediment transport, Coral reef hydrodynamics and associated shoreline behaviour, Long wave generation and surf beat, Extreme non-linear waves (freak waves), Storm surge and tsunami hazards.

His current research projects are in the fields of:

1. Swash Zone hydrodynamics and Sediment Transport
2. Wave overtopping, including tsunami overtopping
3. Coral reef hydrodynamics
4. Impact of sea level rise on coastlines on open and reef-fronted coasts
5. Surf zone processes and beach erosion
6. Infrastructure for offshore aquaculture
7. Wave energy conversion

Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=QU14lwEAAAAJ

Top publications

Baldock, T.E., Swan, C. and Taylor, P.H., 1996. A laboratory study of non-linear surface waves on water. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, Series A. 354, 1-28. [ERA – A]

Baldock, T. E and Huntley, D. A., 2002. Long wave forcing by the breaking of random gravity waves on a beach. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series A. 458, 2177-2201. [ERA – A*]

Baldock, T.E., 2006. Long wave generation by the shoaling and breaking of transient wave groups on a beach, Proceedings of the Royal Society, London., Series A. 462, 1853–1876. [ERA – A*]

Baldock, T. E., O’ Hare, T. J., and Huntley, D. A.., 2004. Long wave forcing on a barred beach. J. Fluid Mechanics, 503, 321-341. [ERA – A*]

Pritchard, D., Guard, P.A. and Baldock, T.E., 2008. An analytical model for bore-driven run-up. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 610: 183-193. [ERA – A*]

Baldock, T.E., Peiris, D. and Hogg, A.J., 2012. Overtopping of solitary waves and solitary bores on a plane beach. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series A., doi: 10.1098/rspa.2011.0729. [ERA –A*]

Saunders, M.I. et al., 2014. Interdependency of tropical marine ecosystems in response to climate change. Nature Clim. Change, 4(8): 724-729. [ERA – A*]

Latest publications:

1. Lancaster, O., Cossu, R., Wilson, M., & Baldock, T. E. (2022). A 3D numerical and experimental parametric study of wave-induced scour around large bluff body structures. Ocean Engineering, 112766. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112766
2. Astorga-Moar, A., & Baldock, T. E. (2022). Assessment and optimisation of runup formulae for beaches fronted by fringing reefs based on physical experiments. Coastal Engineering, 176, 104163. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2022.104163
3. Thompson, M. E., Matson, B. J., & Baldock, T. E. (2022). A globally verified coastal glare estimation tool. Coastal Engineering, 177, 104190.
4. Shabani, B., Ware, P. & Baldock, T. E. 2022. Suppression of Wind Waves in the Presence of Swell: A Physical Modeling Study. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 127, e2021JC018306.
5. Lancaster, O., Cossu, R., Wuppukondur, A., Astorga Moar, A., Hunter, S., & Baldock, T. E. (2022). Experimental measurements of wave-induced scour around a scaled gravity-based Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter. Applied Ocean Research, 126, 103268. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2022.103268
6. Wuppukondur, A. and Baldock, T.E., 2022. Physical and numerical modelling of representative tsunami waves propagating and overtopping in converging channels. Coastal Engineering, p.104120.
7. Wiegerink, J. J., Baldock, T. E., Callaghan, D. P. & Wang, C. M. 2022. Slosh Suppression Blocks - A concept for mitigating fluid motions in floating closed containment fish pen in high energy environments. Applied Ocean Research, 120, 103068.
8. Lancaster, O., Cossu, R., Heatherington, C., Hunter, S. & Baldock, T. E. 2022. Field Observations of Scour Behavior around an Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 10, 320.
9. Blenkinsopp, C. E., Baldock, T. E., Bayle, P. M., Foss, O., Almeida, L. P. & Schimmels, S. 2022. Remote Sensing of Wave Overtopping on Dynamic Coastal Structures. Remote Sensing, 14, 513.
10. Ibrahim, M. S. I. & Baldock, T. E. 2021. Physical and Numerical Modeling of Wave-by-Wave Overtopping along a Truncated Plane Beach. Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, 147, 04021025.
11. Thompson, M., Zelich, I., Watterson, E. & Baldock, T. E. 2021. Wave Peel Tracking: A New Approach for Assessing Surf Amenity and Analysis of Breaking Waves. Remote Sensing, 13, 3372.
12. Birrien, F. & Baldock, T. 2021. A Coupled Hydrodynamic-Equilibrium Type Beach Profile Evolution Model. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 9, 353.
13. Lancaster, O., Cossu, R., Boulay, S., Hunter, S. & Baldock, T. E. 2021. Comparative Wave Measurements at a Wave Energy Site with a Recently Developed Low-Cost Wave Buoy (Spotter), ADCP, and Pressure Loggers. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38, 1019-1033
14. Baldock, T.E., Gravois, U., Callaghan, D.P., Davies, G. and Nichol, S., 2021. Methodology for Estimating return intervals for storm demand and dune recession by clustered and non-clustered morphological events. Coastal Engineering, p.103924.
15. Bayle, P.M., Beuzen, T., Blenkinsopp, C.E., Baldock, T.E. and Turner, I.L., 2021. A new approach for scaling beach profile evolution and sediment transport rates in distorted laboratory models. Coastal Engineering, 163, p.103794.
16. Blenkinsopp, C.E., Bayle, P.M., Conley, D.C., Masselink, G., Gulson, E., Kelly, I., Almar, R., Turner, I.L., Baldock, T.E., Beuzen, T. and McCall, R.T., 2021. High-resolution, large-scale laboratory measurements of a sandy beach and dynamic cobble berm revetment. Scientific data, 8(1), pp.1-11.

Before joining the University of Queensland, Dave P. Callaghan held positions within industry including Parsons Brinckerhoff and Lawson and Treloar and research sector including Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie and the University of Queensland. He is an observer of the Queensland Water Panel and active in the newly created Australian Hydraulic Modelling Association. He is the author of a book section and more than 50 other technical documents with applied and research applications. He is a consultant to private and government organisations. He has worked recently with private and government organisations to improve understanding of extreme coastal weather responses. He is recognised for leading edge research in coastal engineering including statistics of extremes, beach erosion from extreme events, physical and biological interactions of salt marshes and coral reefs, lagoon dynamics and wave propagation.

Wenran Cao is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry (CWiMI) in the Sustainable Minerals Institute. With a track record of successfully delivering short- and long-term research/industry projects, he has developed expertise in conducting field investigation, in-situ measurements, and soil/water sampling, as well as collecting, analysing, and interpreting experimental data to produce insightful reports. He also specialises in developing theoretical and numerical models of physical and geochemical coupling to tackle water-related challenges, as well as conceptualising and implementing groundwater monitoring systems with remote access.

Hubert Chanson is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland, where he has been since 1990, having previously enjoyed an industrial career for six years. His main field of expertise is environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulic engineering, both in terms of theoretical fundamentals, physical and numerical modelling. He leads a group of 5-10 researchers, largely targeting flows around hydraulic structures, two-phase (gas-liquid and solid-liquid) free-surface flows, turbulence in steady and unsteady open channel flows, using computation, lab-scale experiments, field work and analysis. He has published over 1,250 peer reviewed publications including two dozen of books. He serves on the editorial boards of International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Flow Measurement and Instrumentation, and Environmental Fluid Mechanics, the latter of which he is currently a senior Editor. He chaired the Organisation of the 34th IAHR World Congress in June 2011 and of the 22nd Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference in December 2020, both held in Brisbane, Australia.

• since 2023: Honorary Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland.
• 2017-2023: Associate Professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland.
• 2003-2017: Deputy Director (Software), Earth System Sciences Computational Center (ESSCC) & School of Earth Sciences, The University of Queensland.
• 2001-2003: Computational Scientist, CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences Division, Melbourne, Australia.
• 2000-2001: Lecturer, Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University at Albany, Auckland, New Zealand.
• 1996-1999: Research Fellow, Center for Mathematics and its Applications, School of Mathematical Sciences, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra.
• 1989-1996: Research Scientist, Computing Center, University of Karlsruhe/Germany.

Links:

• LinkedIn
• researchgate.net
• Editor: Geoscientific Model Development Journal (GMD), http://www.geoscientific-model-development.net & EGUsphere https://www.egusphere.net/
• Australian Mathematical Society, ANZIAM

Professor Gurgenci's current research interests include energy systems analysis; geothermal and concentrating solar thermal power plant technologies; development of intelligent tutoring and compterised assessment systems for teaching machine design.

Hal Gurgenci, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has many years of industry and academic experience in solar energy, manufacturing and mining. Professor Gurgenci is the Founding Director of the Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence (QGECE).

BIO:

Noun (n): I am a Professor in polymer processing in Chemical Engineering, a chief investigator in Advanced Materials Processing and Manufacturing (AMPAM) centre, a chief investigator/director of external links of the ARC industrial transformation training centre (ITTC) in bioplastics and biocomposites, a chief investigator in food and beverage accellerator (FaBA).and a chief investigator in the solving plastic waste cooperative research centre (spwCRC).

Verb (v): I work at the translational research interface between universities and industry. Specifically my research involves rheology, processing and product design of bio-based materials, polymers and nanocomposite materials. I lead translational research projects in biopolymers and biofluid platforms for agrifood, biomedical and high-value manufacturing sectors which attract government and industry funding; and produce patents, licences. industrial know-how as well as fundamental papers.

History (h): I have worked in industry (SRI international, Sola Optical, Moldflow), have worked in five cooperative research centres (CRCs -Food Packaging, Sugar Innovation, Polymers, Fighting Food Waste, Solving Plastic Waste), have acquired and managed continuous government and industry research projects since 1994, was heavily involved in the spinoff of Plantic Technologies from the CRC food packaging in 2002 (and ongoing research support with them until 2016), and was involved in the research that led to the TenasiTech (TPU nanocomposite) spinoff from UQ in 2007.I am a fellow of the institute of chemical engineers (IChemE) and a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). I am on the editorial board of the Plastics, Rubbers and Composites, Starch, the Journal of Renewable Materials, Green Materials and Functional Composite Materials-Springer-Nature. I have experience on the boards of the UQ Dow Centre, the UQ RTA Centre, and the UQ-HBIS Sustainable Steel Innovation Centre. I won IChemE Shedden Uhde Award and Prize for excellence in Chemical Engineering (2004), the CRC Sugar innovation award (2008), the CRCPolymers Chairman’s award for research and commercialisation (2011), and have received the CRC Association Technology Transfer Award, twice, in 2002 and 2015.

Research:

Current projects are focused on developing new sustainable and bio-based polymers and biochemicals from formulation through to degradation/disposal, understanding processing of nanostructured polymers, developing smarter biopolymers and materials for biomedical, drug delivery, food and high value applications, understanding rheology and processing of a range of polymer, foods and liquids and is involved in new initiatives in circular plastics.

Teaching and Learning:

My teaching has spanned Introduction to Engineering Design, Engineering Thermodynamics, Polymer Engineering, Process Economics, Research Thesis and Engineering Management. I am developing new courses in Sustainability and the Circular Economy. My overall teaching goal is to be a relevant, well organised, enthusiastic and empathetic enabler of learning using multiple teaching and learning modes, and be highly connected to current industrial practices and cutting edge research.

International links

I have been a visiting or invited professor at ENSICAEN-University, Caen, Normandy, University of Nottingham, Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Strasbourg and Institut national des sciences appliquées (INSA) de Lyon in France. I have strong international collaborations with the US Department of Agriculture, Albany, USA; Colorado School of Mines, USA; AnoxKaldnes, Sweden; University of Bradford, University of Warwick, University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, UK, SCION, NZ; Michigan State University, USA, and many Australian universities.

Baojie is a (Full) Professor of Urban Climate and Sustainable Built Environment with the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Chongqing University, China. He is currently leading the Centre for Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Cities with the focus on Heat-Resilient and Low-Carbon Urban Planning and Design. Baojie has published more than 170 peer-reviewed papers in high-ranking journals and delivered more than 40 invited talks in reputable conferences/seminars. Baojie has a SCOPUS H-index of 49 (Scopus). Baojie has been involved in several large research projects on urban climate and built environment in China and Australia. Baojie has been invited to act as Associate Editor, Topic Editor-in-Chief, Leading Guest Editor, Editorial Board Member, Conference Chair, Sessional Chair, Scientific Committee by a variety of reputable international journals and conferences. Baojie received the received the Most Cited Chinese Researchers Title in 2024, Highly Cited Researcher Title (Clarivate) in 2022 and 2023, the Sustainability Young Investigator Award in 2022, the Green Talents Award (Germany) in 2021, and National Scholarship for Outstanding Study Abroad Students (China) in 2019. Baojie was ranked as one of the Top 2% Scientists by the Mendeley in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

My research focuses on fluid flows, in particular turbulent flows. Turbulence is present is many engineering and environmental applications and affects many aspects of our lives. The aim of my research is to better understand turbulence to be able to develop more sustainable engineering solutions and strategies.

Examples include:

• Analysis of atmospheric boundary layer turbulence,
• Investigation of turbulent wind impacts in renewable energy applications, including solar and wind energy,
• Investigation of strategies for reducing the turbulent drag that occurs on aircraft and ships as they move through air or water.

An area of my current research interest is understanding and characterisation of turbulent canopy flows using wind tunnel experiments, field measurements and analytical modelling. Canopy flows exist in agricultural fields, forests, solar arrays and urban environments. My research aims to develop an improved understanding of the turbulent and scalar transport in these environments to inform operational strategies and design considerations in these various environmental, engineering and urban settings.

I joined the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland as a lecturer in 2024. Prior to that, I held lecturer and postdoctoral positions at the University of Adelaide. In addition to my research and teaching activities, I co-convene the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society (AFMS) Seminar Series, a fortnightly online seminar featuring Fluid Mechanics research, and I am on the Student/Early Career Researcher sub-committee of the AFMS.

Dr. Kontogiorgos has received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Food Science from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). A full scholarship was then awarded from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y) for Ph.D. studies in Food Science at the University of Guelph (Canada). After his Ph.D. degree, he worked as an NSERC research fellow at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Canada). Following that post, he worked as academic at the Department of Biological Sciences of the University of Huddersfield (UK) before joining the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences at the University of Queensland. Dr. Kontogiorgos research interests are focused in the area of polysaccharide characterisation and physical chemistry of food macromolecules, gels, and colloidal systems. Currently, he is working on the physical, chemical and technological properties of soluble and insoluble fibres extracted from agricultural wastes. Dr Kontogiorgos is Associate Editor of Food Hydrocolloids and Associate Editor of Food Biophysics.

David Lange joined the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland in early 2018 as a lecturer in Structural Fire Engineering. His background is in Structural Fire Safety Engineering, including risk and performance based design methodoloiges and structural mechanics under high temperature. He has several years of experience working in the research and education sector in Europe, where he has participated in a wide range of projects including coordination of a Horizon 2020 research and innovation action and as principal or co-investigator in a variety of nationally and internationally funded projects in the field of fire safety engineering.

His research interests follow two main tracks: structural fire engineering and infrastructure resilience. In the field of fire safety, his work includes: the study of steel, concrete and composite structures exposed to fire; the response of modern engineeried timber structures to fire; studies of the fire performance of novel materials including load bearing glass and composite structures; travelling fires; uncertainty quantification and probabilsitic design. In the field of critical infrastructure resileince, he has studied the enrichment of risk management methodologies with the resiults of resilience assessment studies and the operationalisation of resilience to various infrastructure sectors and communities which may be exposed to natural disasters.

Dr Mason began at The University of Queensland in late 2014 after holding academic positions at The University of Sydney and QUT. Prior to joining UQ he also worked as a catastrophe risk researcher for the industry-focused research centre, Risk Frontiers at Macquarie University. Matthew’s key areas of interest and expertise lie in the fields of:

• Wind Engineering
• Stochastic modelling of hazards, including convective storms and tropical cyclones
• Probabilistic modelling of structural and infrastructure vulnerability to wind, water and hail
• Catastrophe loss modelling for natural hazards
• Modelling and observation of the atmospheric boundary layer
• Wind tunnel testing and analysis
• Disaster insurance

Dr Mason is currently the Chair of the Standards Australia wind loading sub-committee responsible for maintenance of AS/NZS1170.2.

Prof David Mee's research interests are in Hypersonic and Supersonic Flow.

After completing his PhD at UQ, he spent five years as a Research Fellow in the turbomachinery research group at Oxford University in the U.K. He returned to UQ as an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow in 1991 and joined the academic staff of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1993. He served as Head of the Division of Mechanical Engineering from 2007 to 2017, acting Head of the School of Engineering from January to July 2009 and Head of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering from July 2009 to February 2017. He retired in 2020 and is currently an Emeritus Professor in the School.

David's main areas of research are focussed in the field of hypersonics aerothermodynamics. He has undertaken much research on rapid response, stress-wave force balances, which are essential technology for categorising the performance of scramjet engines in transient facilities, such as shock tubes. He was a member of the team that conducted the first known wind-tunnel test in which a scramjet vehicle produced net thrust. He has also published on the transient processes in the latter stages of boundary layer transition in hypersonic flows.

Heather attained her Bachelor of Technology degree in food engineering from Massey University. She then spent 10 years in gelatine manufacture in various roles including quality assurance, production management and process improvement engineering. In 2015 she completed her PhD study into the rheology of biopolymer soft particle suspensions, supervised by Professor Jason Stokes at the University of Queensland. She has since continued at UQ in postdoctoral roles investigating the relationship between rheological properties, food structure and sensory perception of real food products and model soft particle suspensions with a focus on dairy protein systems. The key outcomes from the project have allowed our industry partner to move towards the rational design of food products.

Jason Stokes is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and leads the Premium Food and Beverages Program in Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator. This program focuses on industry-driven research to enhance onshore value-adding and business growth opportunities.

Jason is a recognized expert in the rheology, lubrication, structure and processing of complex fluids and soft material, including food and beverages. He pioneered the development of rheology and soft contact tribology techniques to provide new insights into oral processing and sensory perception that includes mouthfeel, taste and flavour. His research has uncovered the physical and structural properties driving the complex sensory attributes of a wide variety of food and beverages. These are used by industry to engineer next-generation foods with improved quality and sustainability.

Jason served in a leadership role as Deputy Associate Dean Research (ADR) in the Faculty of EAIT (2020-23), with a specific focus on research training, development and well-being of emerging researchers. He was previously acting ADR in Faculty of EAIT and Director of Research in the School of Chemical Engineering. Prior to joining UQ in 2008, Jason spent a decade as a research scientist at Unilever’s Corporate Research Laboratory in the UK.

Research Focus:

• Rheology, tribology, and interfacial properties of soft matter, food and beverages.
• Soft matter such as gels, soft glasses, suspensions, microgels, emulsions, and foams.
• Colloids and hydrocolloids such as nanocrystalline cellulose, microgels, polysaccharides, proteins, and starches.
• Development of structure-property-processing relationships for rational design of food and beverages, including dairy and plant-based.
• Aqueous lubrication, transport phenomena and flow of non-Newtonian fluids and their application across various industries (minerals, waste, foods, firefighting fluids, polishing fluids).

Dr Adnan Sufian completed his PhD at UNSW Sydney, spending one year as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the University of Queensland, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London and has also worked as a geotechnical engineer with SMEC Australia. Dr Sufian's field of research is in the area of multi-scale and multi-phase mechanics of granular materials. His research aims to develop tools and guidelines so that geotechnical engineers can better handle, manipulate and construct with granular materials, and this can lead to innovative solutions to geotechnical issues surrounding the development of urban infrastructure. He is also interested in understanding natural phenomena associated with granular geomaterials such as landscapes affected by erosion, mass movement of materials in landslides, and mitigating the spread of contaminants in subsurface flows. Dr Sufian has strong expertise in the development of novel, efficient and rigorous multi-scale computational modelling techniques, including the Discrete Element Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics and Network Models, with a core focus on the interaction of water with soil particles. His research is naturally multidisciplinary and he currently collaborates with physicists, mathematicians and engineers to uncover emergent phenomena from the collective behaviour of granular particles.

Alice is a multidisciplinary Research Fellow in Professor Catherine Lovelock's Lab who models flows through wetland areas to identify opportunities to improve hydrological connectivity of sites including mangroves, saltmarsh and seagrass by restoring tidal flows. Her research interests include identifying and predicting hydrological restoration opportunities for coastal ecosystems and utilising coastal and marine ecosystems as nature-based solutions for coastal protection.

She completed her PhD (2021) in Environmental Engineering at the University of Queensland, combining the fields of Marine Ecology and Coastal Engineering. Her PhD investigated how interactions between and variability within physical conditions and seagrass characteristics affect each of the three mechanisms; 1) wave attenuation, 2) sediment stabilisation, and 3) sediment accretion, and highlight the implications for coastal protection by seagrass.

Prior to academia, Alice worked as a consultant drainage and coastal engineer for small and large-scale infrastructure projects. Alice is an Engineers Australia Chartered Environmental Engineer and Civil Engineer and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Alice is currently the Chair of the Early- to Mid-Career Research Committee for the Centre for Marine Science.

Prof. Anand Veeraragavan's research interests are in supersonic combustion of hydrocarbons, hypersonic aerothermodynamics, advanced optical diagnostics for hypersonic flows and microcombustion based portable power. He is the Co-Director for UQ's Centre for Hypersonics. Since 2021, he is an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, which is a Quartile 1 Journal in Aerospace Engineering (Scimago).

Prof. Anand Veeraragavan joined the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering as a mechanical engineering lecturer in 2012. He was an Mid-Career Advance Queensland Research Fellow (2017-2020) awarded for conducting research in the project entitled

Supersonic Combustion of Hydrocarbon Fuels for High-Mach-Number Axisymmetric Scramjets

Anand graduated with a B.Tech in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) in 2002. He obtained his MS (2006) and PhD (2009) degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. His Doctoral research, which focused on understanding flame stabilization in microscale combustors, won the best thesis award in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland.

After his PhD, he took up a research appointment as a postdoctoral research associate in the Device Research Lab at MIT where he worked on thermophotovoltaics and nanofluid based volumetric solar absorbers. He next joined GE Energy as a combustion technologist in the US. At GE, he worked primarily on designing the next generation, land based, heavy duty, gas turbine engine combustors focusing on cost, operability, reliability and emissions and also completed his lean Six Sigma Greenbelt certification at GE.

He is currently undertaking world-leading research in the field of hypersonics and supersonic combustion sponsored by Australian DST, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and U.S. Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD). This includes leading the Australian effort in prestigious projects such as ground testing and simulations in support of the Boundary Layer Transition/Turbulence (BOLT II) flight test sponsored by the AFOSR.

His research interests include:

• Supersonic combustion of hydrocarbon fuels
• Hypersonic aerothermodynamics
• Optical diagnostics: PLIF for supersonic combustion, FLDI for hypersonic aerothermodynamics, high-speed schlieren
• Micro-combustion driven power systems
• Solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technology development

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.