Our People

Enterprise Leader: Prof Tony Patti

The international impact of Green Chemistry is well established, with all the world’s leading chemical companies (e.g. BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont and Pfizer) embracing its principles of designing safe chemicals, employing energy efficient and hazardless chemical synthesis and using renewable feedstocks.

Monash Chemistry has a strong history in Green Chemistry through the ARC Centre for Green Chemistry, awarded in the early 2000’s through the efforts of Colin Raston and Roy Jackson. The state of the art Green Chemical Futures building serves to showcase much of the sustainable chemistry research at Monash Chemistry and demonstrably shows that green chemical principles are embedded in much of what we do from harvesting chemical feedstock from waste to the generation of high performance, biodegradable polymers.

The ARC Training Centre for Green Chemistry in Manufacturing is an interdisciplinary research and training environment where new green and sustainable chemical technologies are developed for use in manufacturing. The Centre has research nodes at Monash University, Deakin University, Flinders University and Curtin University that work together with industry, government authorities and key industry bodies.

Enterprise Leader: Prof Bayden Wood

Chem4Health is dedicated to developing new approaches to diagnosing, treating and understanding the fundamental chemistry of the world's most devastating diseases. The initiative draws upon the collective expertise of physical, analytical, computational, medicinal and synthetic chemists in collaboration with the nation’s leading medical researchers to develop, commercialise and translate new technologies and therapeutics to modern hospitals and to remote environments in the developing world.

Research strengths and facilities within Monash Chemistry and the Faculty of Science are combined with those in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, utilising Monash’s Technology Platforms and the Australian Synchrotron. The consortium has leading collaborations with Melbourne’s premier hospitals and medical research institutes including Monash Health, The Alfred, WeHI, The Austin, VIDRL and the Burnett Institute. It also has direct project engagements with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Molecular Imaging and international networks including University of Warwick, University of Leipzig and many leading Universities in Europe, UK, Asia and the USA.

Chem4Health is at the forefront of the “Big Data” medical revolution providing a holistic framework to meet the demands of medical innovation. It combines extensive analytical and imaging instrumentation and advanced computational modelling, with new methods to synthesise biologically active molecules and novel sensing materials. Chem4Health provides an attractive research environment for targeted pharmaceutical development, testing and modelling.

Enterprise Leader: Prof Doug MacFarlane

The Clean Energy sector at Monash Chemistry aims to build a well-connected research program in Clean Energy Technologies that engages with industry and government agencies to lead the transition towards a zero-carbon future.The enterprise sector also connects strongly to demonstrator level developments at Monash in the context of the Net Zero Carbon initiative.  The Clean Energy sector interacts with Faculty of Engineering researchers through the Monash Energy Materials and Systems Institute.

Australia has an enormous potential to generate and export renewable energy. To support the development of this future energy export industry, aspects of our research is directed towards technologies for conversion of renewable energy into transportable materials, for example hydrogen, and ammonia. Carbon capture, combined with renewable energy based reduction to formate and methanol, are also a significant focus. Work in these areas is supported by the Australian Centre for Electromaterials Science (ACES) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency as well as attracting strong interest from industry.

Electrical energy storage technologies, including new advanced battery chemistries (lithium metal, sodium, magnesium and flow chemistries) as well as supercapacitors, is a core activity  supported by ACES and the new ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre in Future Energy Storage Technologies.

Biomass energy sources, especially when derived from waste, has an important role to play in the future energy technology mix. Work on chemistries for the dissolution, extraction of bioactives and other valuables, and then conversion to a transportable fuel are an ongoing interest in the School that also connects strongly with several collaborators in the Monash-IITB Academy.

Enterprise Leader: Prof Louise Bennett

After a very long uninterrupted period of plentiful food available to the developed world, this status is being threatened by climate change, population pressures and arguably, the fact that food substrates are now traded as commodities and subject to market forces without special protections. These future challenges are creating exciting new research pathways and opportunities spanning all disciplines.

Research and development in food supply, innovation, technology and nutrition are developing rapidly at Monash as academics seek to apply their expertise to food-related challenges.

Monash is exceptional in having the Monash Food Innovation (MFI), a highly successful initiative that supports Monash and industry-driven innovation into the marketplace. MFI operates at the interface of both education and research, with tailored chaperoning of knowledge and products to benefit society and industry.

The need is greater than ever for education and research to inform the understanding and operations of stakeholders, including government, industry and consumers.

The Monash Master of Food Science and Agribusiness will commence in 2020. This post-graduate theme of study will be focused from post-farm-gate to consumer and address the cross-disciplinary and inter-dependence of technical, business, nutritional and consumer facets of training needs, with a view to empowering graduates to meet future challenges.  The Smart Food enterprise is lead from Monash Chemistry and supported strongly by collaborations across the University.