30th August 2024

QUT is celebrating new ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) valued at $3.7million.

The recipients are:

Dr Maria Kleshnina from QUT’s School of Mathematical Sciences has received a $400,709 award for her project, Better environmental decisions amid strategic and evolutionary feedbacks.

Dr Kleshnina combines novel techniques from dynamical systems, game theory, simulations, optimisation, and experiments to contribute to solving challenges such as inequality, promoting prosocial behaviour and mitigating eco-evolutionary feedback of ecosystems

“This project aims to revolutionize conservation policymaking by understanding eco-evolutionary feedback and strategic interactions among multiple stakeholders to pursue effective biodiversity conservation,” Dr Kleshnina said.

“The resulting unified, mathematical framework will help to identify key indicators in the system's behaviour, construct decision-support tools, and offer insights on the structure of viable actions available to the policymaker.”

 

Dr Jasmine Lee, a visiting fellow at QUT’s School of Biology and Environmental Science, has been awarded $483,174 for her project, Measuring and mitigating cumulative impacts in Antarctica.

Dr Lee, currently an 1851 research fellow at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, said the project aimed to investigate human impacts in terrestrial Antarctica and determine how we could best conserve its biodiversity for future generations.

“Antarctica is still largely untouched by humans, but pressure from human activities and climate change are growing and we don’t yet know if their impacts accumulate over time, or if they interact to produce a combined impact larger than each pressure independently,” Dr Lee said.

“This project will produce new methods for assessing cumulative impacts, and drastically improve our understanding of cumulative impacts in Antarctica to enable policymakers to better manage Antarctica’s unique species and ecosystems.

“The results will provide substantial benefits to Australian and international Antarctic policymakers, and everyone interested in conserving the world’s last great wilderness.”

 

Dr Andy Leu, from QUT’s School of Biomedical Sciences, has been awarded $480,981 for his project, Characterising extracellular contractile injection systems in human gut.

Dr Leu said this research would focus on characterise a recently uncovered mechanism, where bacteria produce toxin-filled ‘missiles’ that could kill or modulate their competitors or host.

“I will use molecular and visualisation-based techniques to uncover the diversity, mechanisms and targets of these microbial ‘weapons’ in a model ecosystem of the human gut microbiome,” Dr Leu said.

“This will greatly expand our understanding of this microbial warfare mechanism which could be a prime candidate for use as a customisable biocontrol agent to deliver diverse toxins to specific target cells and pathogens.

“The successful outcome and patenting will lead to commercial partnerships to ensure commercial benefits is realised in Australia.”

 

Dr Meng Li from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics was awarded $454,791 for his project, Advancing meta-thermoelectrics through dual-channel phonon engineering.

Dr Li’s project aims to develop dual-channel phonon engineering for a new type of thermoelectrics with inherent low thermal conductivity, termed meta-thermoelectrics, which could bring new knowledge in heat conduction and phonon transport theories.

“Thermoelectrics can convert low-quality heat to high value-added electric energy and will play an important role in Australia’s move to net zero emission,” Dr Li said.

“This project proposes an original dual-channel approach to simultaneously manipulate phonons in both propagative and diffusive channels which will be validated in meta-thermoelectric materials.

“Meta-thermoelectric devices with energy conversion efficiency up to 18 per cent could be used for waste heat harvesting and ultrafast cooling techniques that would reduce use of fossil fuels and improve energy accessibility globally.”

 

Dr Junxian Liu has received $443,331 for the project, Sustainable electrosynthesis of urea and formamide.

Dr Liu from QUT’s School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, said the project aimed to design high-efficiency catalysts for electrochemical urea and formamide synthesis through theoretical simulations.

“Urea and formamide are vital in modern agriculture, chemical industries, and pharmaceuticals, yet their production is unsustainable due to high-temperature and high-pressure processes that produce extensive greenhouse gas emissions,” Dr Liu said.

“My aim is to gain new insights into electrocatalysis by systematically exploring reaction mechanisms and develop optimal catalysts with high conversion efficiency and establish universal theoretical principles.

“This research will, in the long term, lead to increased production of crops and medicines, reduced costs in chemical industries, and improved environmental protection.”

 

Dr Zhongzheng Wang, from QUT’s School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, has been awarded $481,621 for the project, Enhancing residual trapping of CO2 during geological sequestration.

Dr Wang said carbon geo sequestration involved injecting captured CO2 into deep underground formations for permanent storage to combat climate change.

"As optimising this process is challenging due to storage capacity and safety factors, this project aims to develop advanced computational methods to identify optimal parameters for maximising CO2 trapping,” Dr Wang said.

"By enhancing efficiency, we can significantly improve geo sequestration's effectiveness as a climate change mitigation strategy.

“With the global carbon capture and storage market projected to reach US$35 billion by 2032, this research could provide both environmental and economic benefits to Australia, supporting the country's commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”

 

Dr David Warne from QUT’s School of Mathematical Sciences has been awarded $488,138 for the project, Sustainable statistical computing for climate-sensitive science.

Dr Warne said the project would address the substantial carbon footprint of simulation-based statistical computations which underpin modern science.

“Globally, computing produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the aviation industry and while we need computer algorithms and simulation to tackle the climate crisis, the environmental impact of the necessary large-scale supercomputing is contributing to fossil fuel emissions and e-waste,” Dr Warne said

“This project’s outcomes will be new simulation-based, inference algorithms designed to be fast, accurate, and energy-efficient.

“I will use novel, readily available, low-power computer hardware to demonstrate the future of low-energy statistical computing for climate-sensitive applications in health, environment and sustainability.”

(Image: Inset, top: Dr Jasmine Lee, Dr Andy Leu. Group image left to right: Dr David Warne, Dr Navid Freidoonimehr, Dr Qingqing Cheng, Dr Junxian Liu, Dr Maria Kleshnina, Dr Zhongzheng Wang and Mr Meng Li.)

QUT Media contacts:

Niki Widdowson, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au

After hours: 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au.

 

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