Engineering breaks its own record with 20 successful ARC Discovery Projects
In the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) funding, Monash Engineering has excelled itself with grants awarded for an unprecedented 20 Discovery Projects (leading all but six), as well as for four Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities projects (leading two), three Discovery Early Career Research Awards and one Linkage Project. Announced on Tuesday 27 November by the Honourable Dan Tehan, this huge win underscores the faculty’s strong reputation for life-changing initiatives.
In the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) funding, Monash Engineering has excelled itself with grants awarded for an unprecedented 20 Discovery Projects (leading all but six), as well as for four Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities projects (leading two), three Discovery Early Career Research Awards and one Linkage Project. Announced on Tuesday 27 November by the Honourable Dan Tehan, this huge win underscores the faculty’s strong reputation for life-changing initiatives.
“The ARC has a highly competitive peer-reviewed application process,” explains Chris Hutchinson, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Engineering. “These fantastic outcomes are a testament to the high calibre and commitment of our researchers and their teams."
The grants will boost innovative research in chemical, civil, electrical and computer systems, materials, mechanical and aerospace engineering – advancing everything from biodegradable stents and ultra-lightweight corrosion-resistant metal products to landfill liners and smart windows for green construction to micro-air vehicles and soil moisture satellite missions.
Here are just a few of the newly funded Engineering projects (see tables below for details of all successful projects):
- Exploration of semiconducting polymer chains and charge transport in thin-film devices to improve high-performance polymer transistors, laying the groundwork for new technologies based on lightweight flexible electronic devices (Assoc Prof Christopher McNeill, Assoc Prof David Huang, Prof Martin Heeney and Prof Michael Sommer).
- Developing new membranes as separators in lithium-sulphur batteries to produce lighter, longer-lasting and cheaper batteries than the existing lithium-ion ones, with the potential to boost the adoption of electric cars (Assoc Prof Matthew Hill, Prof Mainak Majumder, Dr Mahdokht Shaibani and Prof Stephen Kaskel).
- Interdisciplinary study of sperm motion at surfaces, providing insight into flagellar motility in eukaryotes and the biophysics of mammalian reproduction (Dr Reza Nosrati, Dr Prabhakar Ranganathan and Prof David Sinton).
Prof Margaret Gardner AO FASSA, President and Vice-Chancellor of Monash, asserts that the outstanding ARC results demonstrate our commitment to growing research capacity on an international scale. “Being able to solve some of the greatest global challenges requires world-class vision by world-class researchers,” she says. “Excellence in research can lead to lasting and positive change, and our Australian Research Council grant recipients will be able to pursue this kind of impact.”
Successful 2019 Discovery Projects
| Investigator(s) | Lead Department | Project Title |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew Hill, Mainak Majumder, Mahdokht Shaibani, Stefan Kaskel | Chemical, Mech & Aero | Advanced separators for Li-S batteries |
| Ravi Jagadeeshan, Gareth McKinley | Chemical | Linking topology and rheology for designing supramolecular polymer networks |
| Hai Vu, Lachlan Andrew, Tran Khoa Phan | Civil | Efficient and fair context-aware resource allocation in networks |
| Abdelmalek Bouazza, Will Gates, Ronald Rowe, Harianto Rahardjo | Civil | Thermo-hydro-mechanics of geosynthetic liners: from processes to prediction |
| Ha Bui, Giang Nguyen | Civil | Bridging spatial and temporal scales in modelling internal soil erosions |
| Abdelmalek Bouazza, Ronald Rowe | Civil | Landfill gas emissions through geosynthetic systems: closing the missing gaps |
| Arthur Lowery, Andreas Boes, John Bowers | ECSE | Low-energy electro-photonics: novel materials, devices and systems |
| Benjamin Eggleton, William Corcoran, Amol Choudhary, Radan Slavik | ECSE – USyd collab | Needle in a haystack: new tools for optical tone recovery |
| Arnan Mitchell, William Corcoran, John Bowers, Jochen Schröder | ECSE – RMIT collab | Rainbows on demand: coherent comb sources on a photonic chip |
| Christopher McNeill, David Huang, Martin Heeney, Michael Sommer | Materials | Aggregation control for high-performance polymer electronics |
| Neil Cameron, Tanja Junkers | Materials | Precision porous polymer microparticles via integrated flow processes |
| Jian-Feng Nie, Yunzhi Wang | Materials | Stronger zinc alloys for more flexible biodegradable stents |
| Michael Ferry, Sophie Primig, Nick Birbilis, Philip Nakashima | Materials – UNSW collab | Unlocking the diverse property profile of ultra-lightweight magnesium alloys. |
| Steven Chown, Christopher Hutchinson | Biology, Materials | Skin in the game: biomimetics, fitness and the springtail cuticle |
| Nicolas Voelcker, Victor Cadarso Busto, Jessica Frith, Dr Juergen Brugger, Dr Joachim Spatz | Pharmacy, Mech & Aero, Materials | Micro/nano smart surfaces to unlock the potential of multipotent stem cells |
| Reza Nosrati, Prabhakar Ranganathan, David Sinton | Mech & Aero | Understanding sperm motion at surfaces |
| Daniel Edgington- Mitchell, Damon Honnery, Mo Samimy, Kilian Oberleithner, Peter Jordan | Mech & Aero | The art of controlling multijet resonance in jet noise and power generation |
| Julio Soria, Callum Atkinson, Javier Jimenez, Peter Schmid | Mech & Aero | Genesis and evolution of coherent structures in wall- bounded turbulence |
| Mark Thompson, John Sheridan, David Lo Jacono | Mech & Aero | Understanding flapping aerodynamics in non-optimal environments |
| Elizabeth Gardiner, Woei Ming Lee, Josie Carberry | Mech & Aero – ANU collab | A multiplex microscope platform to define molecular events in fluid systems |
Successful 2019 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award projects
| Investigator(s) | Department | Project Title |
|---|---|---|
| Zhu, Yinlong | Chemical | Perovskite-based electrocatalysts for water electrolysis |
| Zhang, Qianhui | Civil | Nanotechnology-based multifunctional smart window development |
| Angmo, Dechan | Materials | Printed back electrodes enabling low-cost perovskite solar cells |
Successful Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities projects
| Investigator(s) | Department | Project Title |
|---|---|---|
| Jeffrey Walker, Stuart Phinn, Linlin Ge, Nemai Karmakar, Mirela Tulbure, Brian Ng, Mark Preiss, Mahta Moghaddam, James Mead | Civil, ECSE | High resolution airborne P-band radar for environmental research |
| Igor Aharonovich, Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, Wenlong Cheng, Yuerui Lu, Jacek Jasieniak, Nicolas Voelcker, Min Gu, Luhua Li, Mark Banaszak Holl, Tao Wu, Matthew Phillips, Brian Abbey, Ann Roberts, Dan Li, | Materials Chemical | Multi-functional 3D imaging system for micro and nanoscale devices |
| Julie Cairney, Margaret Sunde, Simon Ringer, Shelley Wickham, Nick Birbilis, Sebastian Thomas, Roger Wepf, Ruth Knibbe, Richard Tilley, David Young, Nicholas Ariotti, S Yin Xiao, Prasaad Yarlagadda, Mark Wilson, Darren Bagnall | Materials – U Syd collab | A comprehensive correlative cryo microscopy suite |
| Sean Smith, Debra Bernhardt, Matthew England, Evatt Hawkes, Oliver Hofmann, Derek Leinweber, Alan Mark, Louis Moresi, Dietmar Muller, Associate Ekaterina Pas (née Izgorodina), Salvy Russo, Julio Soria, Ben Thornber, Irene Yarovsky, James Zanotti | Mech & Aero – ANU collab | Sustaining and strengthening merit-based access to National Computational Infrastructure. |
2018 ARC Linkage Projects – continuous round
| Investigator(s) | Department | Project Title |
|---|---|---|
| Lian Zhang, Alan Chaffee, Hongwei Zhenyu Liu, Stephen Wee, Gerald Morvell | Chemical | In-situ catalytic upgrading of bio-oil use of scrap tyre char |
To see a full list of ARC grants per institution and discipline, please visit the following links: Discovery Projects 2019, Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2019, Linkage Infrastructure 2019, Linkage Projects.