28 August 2024

Fifteen University of Queensland researchers have been awarded $15.3 million through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowships 2024 scheme to drive research and innovation.

The scheme supports mid-career researchers to undertake projects across government priority areas including energy, health, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing.

UQ researchers were the most awarded nationally for projects including battery advancement to meet clean energy targets, vaccine development to protect livestock against mosquito-borne diseases, and discoveries in superfluid helium – the only quantum liquid. 

UQ recipients of the ARC Future Fellowships 2024:

  • Dr Christopher Baker - developing sensors to probe superfluid helium - a quantum fluid with zero viscosity – to improve understanding of fluid dynamics and turbulence.
  • Dr Timothy Ballard - understanding the impact of working hours on life satisfaction to inform more sustainable work practices.
  • Professor Zhifeng Bao - developing an automated data orchestration system to reduce the time, money and energy required to train a high-performing machine learning model.
  • Dr Fabio Cortesi - Investigating how coral reef fish adapt their vision to improve their survival in response to reef degradation and light pollution.
  • Associate Professor Gianluca Demartini - managing bias in data and artificial intelligence (AI) to empower end-users and accelerate investment in responsible AI.
  • Dr Hannah Filmer - understanding the neurophysiology of executive function to form a greater understanding of the brain to enhance human performance.
  • Professor Daniel Franks - assessing how poverty is impacted by access to, and availability, stability and utilisation of minerals, to improve measurement tools, policies and programs
  • Dr Jody Hobson-Peters - developing a novel platform to diagnose and treat alphaviral pathogens such as Ross River virus in livestock.
  • Dr Xiaodan Huang - advancing high-capacity rechargeable aluminum batteries to support local manufacturing and meet clean energy targets.
  • Dr Larisa Labzin - understanding how natural immune signalling can indicate birds’ susceptibility to viruses.
  • Dr Ramio Lafuente - addressing questions about solutions to Einstein’s equations, including the theory of general relativity, to advance understanding of geometry.
  • Dr Justyna Miszkiewicz - assessing how fundamental cell mechanisms that build and destroy bone have responded to social changes over the last millennium to aid national assessment of incidences of bone diseases.
  • Dr Rodrigo Suarez - researching brain circuit formation in mammals to understand early brain formation and manipulate brain wiring.
  • Associate Professor Cecilia Gonzalez Tokman - developing mathematical tools to better understand how environment changes affect the transient and long-term behaviour of systems influenced by noisy inputs and external forces.  
  • Dr Hongyi Xu - developing methods to allow study of atomic structures in crystals too small or complex for existing techniques, for materials science, structural biology and chemistry, sustainable energy and drug discovery.

The scheme is part of the ARC’s Discovery Program which aims to help grow Australia’s research and innovation capacity to result in knowledge and economic benefits for Australia. 

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