Find an expert

Mitch Dunn is a Research Fellow within the UQ Composites group, in the school of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. He has interest in a wide range of material research activities, including functional composite materials, non-destructive evaluation, novel material systems, high-temperature applications, instrumentation, and novel RF/antenna applications in Defence.

Mitch received his PhD from UQ in 2018 for his work on the detection of laminar damage in composite laminates using nonlinear ultrasonic techniques. Recently, he has worked extensively on industry technology development and innovation projects focused around functional composite materials and conformal, load-bearing antenna structures.

Gordon holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, which focused on the application of machine vision, image processing and machine learning algorithms for modelling grade in froth flotation systems.

Gordon spent ten years working for the Victorian Government developing technical computing and modelling solutions. These included the development of the Environmental Systems Modelling Platform, a tool that aims to bring multiple environmental models and datasets into a single easy to use software package, and the development of the Native Vegetation Regulations Tool, to calculate the interactions between proposed clearings and models of rare and threatened species, and thereby determine the required offset credits. More recently, Gordon worked as a data scientist at the Victorian Centre for Data Insights, where he worked with a team focused on delivering innovative data driven solutions across the government sector.

Gordon now applies his data analytics, modelling and technical computing skills at the JKMRC where he works with the Advanced Process Prediction and Control group developing tools for improved time series analysis and visualisation of industrial data and comminution process models.

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).

Dr Aditya Khanna is a Lecturer (Applied Mechanics) at The University of Queensland (commenced 2023). Prior to joining UQ, Aditya worked as an engineering consultant (dynamics and vibration) at Vipac Engineers & Scientists Ltd and held an adjunct lecturer appointment at The University of Adelaide. Aditya's research and industry consulting background is in the areas of: stress analysis, fatigue and fracture assessment, structural dynamics, vibration control, and non-destructive testing,

Dr. Yuanshen Lu began his current role at the University of Queensland (UQ) as a DECRA Fellow and Lecturer in September 2019. Previously, he was a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Griffith University, following several years of postdoctoral research experience at UQ. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2015.

Dr. Lu’s primary research interests lie in energy conversion and thermo-fluids within conventional and renewable energy systems, as well as hydrogen utilization. His current work focuses on heat engines (e.g., supercritical CO₂ power cycles), turbomachinery (e.g., wind turbines), and heat management in energy systems, including applications in heat exchangers, cooling towers, ground-source heat pumps, and thermal management in hydrogen-based steelmaking processes.

Dr. Lu is actively engaged with industry and has contributed to sectors such as thermal power generation, coal seam gas, HVAC, renewable energy, and steel industry. Leveraging his expertise in advanced experimentation and modeling, he is dedicated to driving innovations in energy harvesting, power consumption, and energy savings across a range of renewable applications. Dr. Lu currently serves as UQ’s Program Leader in the Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute (ASTRI) program, leading the Power Conversion team in developing supercritical CO₂ power cycles. He is also the Deputy Director of the Centre for Multiscale Energy Systems (CMES) at UQ.

Dr. Mingyuan Lu was awarded her PhD from The University of Queensland in Febuary 2014. She has previously completed a Masters of Engineering (June 2009, Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, China), and a Bachelor of Engineering (June 2007, Materials Science and Engineering, Central south University, China).

Mingyuan has more than 10 years’ experience in research, and during this period she has gained extensive experience with material synthesis, mechanical mechanics, and material characterization including nanoindentation, nanoscratching, atomic force microscopy, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam milling (FIB); additionally,she has experience with structural and compositional analysis techniques (Raman, XRD, EDS, DTA, DSC etc.).

Mingyuan's contributions to the field of mechanical and materials engineering are listed below:

Materials mechanics

• (2015-2016) developed a new and successful FIB-machined micro-cantilever bending technique to study the fracture and interfacial properties of the protective intermetallic coatings on magnesium alloys: this technique can be applied to a wide range of materials, sub-surface structures and multilayered structures. Based on this methodology, they later developed a micro-bridge four-point bending technique. This approach can generate a “stable” interfacial delamination, and thus enables quantitative analysis of interfacial toughness.
• (2011-2014) developed an indentation-based methodology for assessing the interfacial adhesion of bilayer structures, in a joint project that was funded by WIN Semiconductor Co., Taiwan: the methodology developed has been used to test the reliability of SiN-passivated GaAs semiconductor wafer products.

Materials synthesis and processing

• (2015-current) developing a selective laser sintering process for the additive manufacturing of porous and biodegradable scaffolds, made from a biopolymer, for bone tissue engineering: this innovative process can produce scaffolds without the use of an artificial 3D model, and the scaffold has a unique interconnected pore architecture and large surface area making it suitable for bone tissue regeneration applications. The promising outcomes of the preliminary study have elicited strong support from UQ; it has received two generous internal grants (a philanthropic grant for an ECR in the field of engineering, and SEED funding) to enable further study in this field. The scaffolds will shortly be tested in a pre-clinical mouse model (funded by SEEM grant) to study biocompatibility and osteoconductivity.
• (2007-2009) developed high-performance refractory metallic materials using powder metallurgy processes: in this project, they discovered the effect of trace TiC, ZrC Carbide nanoparticles on the mechanical properties, sintering behaviour and microstructure of molybdenum alloys.

Professor Ross McAree is Head of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. His research interests are focused on machinery dynamics and control with a current emphasis on mining equipment automation.. Professor McAree led the development and demonstration of the world’s first fully autonomous mining excavator as the outcome of a 10year collaboration with Joy Global Surface Mining (now part of Komatsu) and has collaborated with Caterpillar Inc. to develop and trial the world’s first autonomous bulldozer capable of production dozing using the ‘pivot push’ method. From 2007-2015 Professor McAree held an industry funded (P&H) Chair in Mechanical Engineering and from 2009-2015 he was Vice President for Automation and Automation Program Leader with the Cooperative Research Centre for Mining. He has attracted in excess of $12M dollars of Category 1-3 and $8.5M of Category 4 funding has contributed to the winning of two CRC bids (CRCMining and CRCMining2) for a total of $35.2M funding. He established the Mechatronic Engineering Plan at UQ in 2002. He has given leadership to his School as Chair of Research Committee (2009-2015) and Teaching and Learning Committee (2015-2017). Significant external service includes serving as Chair for the Australian Academy of Science National Committee on Mechanical Sciences (2001-2006) and as the Australian representative to the International Federation of Mechanism and Machine Theory (2001-continuing), Associate Editor for journal ‘Mechatronics’ (1999-2011) and member of Australian Standards Committees ME-27 and IT-06P. Professor McAree is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE).

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 obtained his BE (Chem) and PhD from University of Melbourne, and was a Researcher with Unilever R&D United Kingdom from 1999-2008, before joining UQ in 2008.

Jason is a recognized expert in the rheology, lubrication, structure and processing of complex fluids and soft materials, 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.

He served in a leadership role as Deputy Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT (EAIT), 2020-23, with a specific focus on research training, development and well-being of emerging researchers. He has previously held other senior roles inlcude Acting Associate Dean of Research in Faculty of EAIT and Director of Research in the School of Chemical Engineering.

Some key areas of his research include:

1. Rheology, tribology, and interfacial properties of soft matter, food and beverages, including development of methods to uncover relevant material properties of food and beverages driving mouthfeel, texture and flavour. .
2. Soft materials and Soft matter such as gels, soft glasses, suspensions, microgels, emulsions and foams, with particular emphasis on using fundamental approaches to uncover structure-property relationships for complex systems.
3. Colloids and hydrocolloids such as nanocrystalline cellulose, microgels, polysaccharides, proteins and starches.
4. Development of structure-property-processing relationships for rational design of food and beverages, including dairy & plant-based and solids & liquids.
5. Aqueous lubrication, transport phenomena and flow of non-Newtonian fluids and their application across various industries (minerals, waste, foods, firefighting fluids, polishing fluids).

Professor Stokes lectures and coordinates teaching modules in the Chemical Engineering degree, with particular strengths in Fluid Mechanics and currently coordinates and lectures both Transport Phenomenon (CHEE4009) and Engineering Placement (ENGG7292) courses.

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.