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Jason Stokes is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and Leader of the Premium Food and Beverages Program within Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator. His program delivers industry‑driven research aimed at enhancing onshore value‑adding and supporting business growth across the sector. Jason obtained his BE (Chem) and PhD from the University of Melbourne and worked as a Researcher at Unilever R&D in the United Kingdom from 1999–2008 before joining UQ in 2008. He has over 25 years of experience working in and with the food industry locally and globally, spanning industrial R&D, long-term research partnerships, and innovation translation.

Jason was named among Australia’s Top 250 Researchers in Research Magazine (The Australian, 2026), ranking first nationally in the Field of Dispersion Chemistry within Chemical and Material Sciences.

He is internationally recognised for his expertise in the rheology, lubrication, structure and processing of complex fluids and soft materials, including food and beverages. He pioneered the development of advanced rheology and soft-contact tribology techniques that provide new insights into oral processing and sensory perception—spanning mouthfeel, taste and flavour. His research has uncovered the physical and structural mechanisms underlying complex sensory attributes across diverse food systems, supporting industry in designing next‑generation products with enhanced quality, sensory performance and sustainability.

Jason has served in several senior leadership roles, including Deputy Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (2020–23), where he focused on research training, development, and researcher wellbeing. He has also served as Acting Associate Dean (Research) and Director of Research in the School of Chemical Engineering.

Key areas of his research include:

• Rheology, tribology, and interfacial properties of soft matter, including development of methods to identify material properties governing mouthfeel, texture and flavour.
• Soft materials and soft matter systems—gels, soft glasses, suspensions, microgels, emulsions and foams—with an emphasis on uncovering structure–property relationships in complex systems.
• Colloids and hydrocolloids, including nanocrystalline cellulose, microgels, polysaccharides, proteins and starches.
• Structure–property–processing relationships for the rational design of food and beverage products across dairy, plant-based, solid and liquid formulations.
• Aqueous lubrication, transport phenomena and non‑Newtonian fluid flow, with applications across minerals processing, waste streams, food manufacturing, firefighting fluids and polishing systems.

Jason teaches across the Chemical Engineering program, with particular strengths in fluid mechanics, transport phenomena and research project supervision. He currently coordinates and lectures in Transport Phenomenon (CHEE4009) and Engineering Placement (ENGG7292).

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.