QUT is celebrating the award of $9.87 million ARC Discovery grants to fund 16 projects.
The multidisciplinary research teams will delve into a wide range of disciplines from psychology, and education to robotics and chemistry to generate new knowledge beneficial to solving problems in climate change mitigation, reducing teacher workloads, and renewable energy.
The recipients are:
Associate Professor Laura Bray
Associate Professor Laura Bray, of the QUT School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering has been awarded $629,178 for the project, Defining cell communication and mechanics in tissue specific vasculature.The project aims to improve our understanding of the mechanical properties that regulate the organ-specificity of blood vessels and their function.
Professor Bray said the endothelial cells lining blood vessels play a specialised role in the local physiology of their respective organs, however little is known about the fundamental biophysical events which trigger or characterise this function.
“This project expects to generate new knowledge in the area of developmental biology using collaborative, cutting-edge biomechanical techniques,” she said.
“In studying this process, the project should provide critical insights into how changes in cell and fluid mechanics are interpreted by, and consequently determine, the identity and function of organ-specific endothelial cells.”
Other team members include Dr Anna Taubenberger from the Dresden University of Technology and UQ Professor Carlos Salomon.
Professor Aijun Du, from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics, has been awarded by $497,847 for the project, Engineering 2D van der Waals materials for solar hydrogen production.
Professor Du said the project’s aim was to determine novel theoretical principles on new photocatalyst designs to be translated into sustainable new photocatalytic processing in water splitting.
“Efficient and low-cost photo-catalysts for solar hydrogen production will be vital in the transition to environmentally responsible energy industries,” Professor Du said.
“This project will produce innovative 2D van der Waals photocatalysts for producing clean hydrogen fuels under solar light which will reduce the high energy and carbon emissions of the current industrial process.
“The new photocatalysts will enable sustainable production under solar light to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions of the current industrial process.
“This new generation of clean energy technology for splitting water into hydrogen will bring significant economic and environmental benefit, underpinning new research capability and applied industry-relevant renewable technology for Australia.”
Dr Maryam Haghighat. Bottom left: Dr Dimity Miller, Dr Simon Denman,
Dr Kien Nguyen.
Professor Clinton Fookes, from QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics is the lead chief investigator on the project, Human-machine teaming in a communications-denied environment, which has received $566,337.
Professor Fookes said the project would develop new learning and long-term memory capabilities for artificial intelligence (AI) to advance human-machine learning in challenging environments.
“We will develop new approaches for AI systems to predict human behaviour, to improve abilities to rapidly respond to changes in the environment, and to enable stronger decision-making with incomplete and uncertain data,” Professor Fookes said.
“The new methods we develop for complex and adversarial environments will support a range of industry sectors including collaborative and service robotics, manufacturing and transport.”
The research team comprises chief investigators Professor Fookes, Dr Simon Denman, Dr Maryam Haghighat, Dr Dimity Miller, Professor Sridha Sridharan, Dr Kien Nguyen all from QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics.
Associate Professor Hendrik Frisch and Dr Berwyck Poad, from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics, have received a $573,465 grant for the project, The photochemical tool to probe assembly across water and gas phase.
Professor Frisch said the precise assembly of peptides into defined architectures is paramount for protein functionality as any errors can lead to a loss of function or even disease.
“Mass spectrometry which is an important tool for studying protein structures operates in the gas phase and tools that enable study of peptide assemblies in their native state in water and in the gas phase are scarce,” Professor Frisch said.
“This project will develop a conceptually unprecedented approach to studying peptide assembly in both water and gas phases.
“This project will build on our recent finding that photocycloadditions, key reactions of chemical synthesis, can be manipulated by peptide assembly which means we could exploit this assembly sensitivity, to turn photoreactions from a synthetic into a missing analytical tool.”
Associate Professor Anna Hogan from QUT’s School of Teacher Education and Leadership, and team have been awarded $343,172 for the project, Curriculum, resources and teachers’ work.
Professor Hogan said the project would evaluate the efficacy of the commercial curriculum industry in enhancing Australian school teachers’ ability to deliver quality lessons and reduce their curriculum planning time.
“Our research will address the urgent need to assess these commercial resources and their impact on education and generate new knowledge on how teachers work productively with commercial tools to teach the Australian curriculum,” Professor Hogan said.
“Expected outcomes include publicly available policy resources to promote the equitable distribution and use of commercial resources in teacher lesson planning, and to produce best practice guidelines to support the development, sale and use of curriculum resources.”
The QUT research team comprises Associate Professor Hogan, Dr Naomi Barnes and Professor Greg Thompson, all from QUT’s School of Teacher Education and Leadership.
Professor Ottmar Lipp, from QUT’s School of Psychology and Counselling, will lead the project, An integrated framework to understand emotional learning which has received funding of $843,458.
Professor Lipp said the research project aimed to provide foundational knowledge to develop an integrated framework of emotional learning and design psychological interventions to reduce fear and interpersonal biases.
“Emotional learning and the acquisition of likes and dislikes, fears and desires are part of being human yet the processes underlying emotional learning are not well understood,” Professor Lipp said.
“Biases and prejudice negatively affect many people and relapse after successful treatment of anxiety disorders is common and this research aims to provide evidence that aids the development of longer lasting interventions to reduce or prevent the return of fear after treatment.”
The research team comprises chief investigators Professor Lipp, and Dr Luke Ney from QUT; Dr Camilla Luck from Curtin University; Professor Allison Waters, Griffith University; Professor Michelle Craske from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Professor Anna Potter, Professor Amanda Lotz
Professor Amanda Lotz, from QUT School of Communication, will lead the project Understanding 21st-century media uses and purposes funded by a grant of $898,289.
Professor Lotz said the project would address pressing sociocultural issues such as social cohesion, misinformation, and belonging by investigating how Australians engage in the unprecedented range of media content and sources.
“Although we are awash with data about clicks, views and likes we do not have systematic person-level data to aid understanding about media’s role,” Professor Lotz said.
“We will investigate the societal challenges of 21st-century media by gathering detailed evidence about how Australians use media to inform our analysis of the challenges this environment creates for Australians.”
The research team comprises Professor Lotz, Professor Anna Potter, Associate Professor Stephen Harrington, all from QUT; Professor Jonathan Gray from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and partner investigator Professor Sonya Dal Cin from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The project Complex analysis of nonlinear models in applied mathematics by Professor Scott McCue and Dr Michael Dallaston, of the QUT School of Mathematical Sciences, has been awarded $445,000.
It aims to investigate nonlinear mathematical models using applied complex analysis. By employing a variety of applied mathematical tools and repurposing them in the complex plane, the project expects to generate new insight into how properties of complex-valued solutions are manifested in real-valued nonlinear models.
Professor McCue said the expected outcomes include a powerful new mathematical framework for interpreting classes of nonlinear mathematical models.
“It is anticipated that significant benefits will be delivered to the applied mathematical community via the development of new mathematical theory and a deeper understanding of nonlinear mathematical models for profoundly important phenomena in the physical and biological sciences,” he said.
Professor Paula McDonald, QUT Pro Vice Chancellor, Research and Professor of Work and Organisation, has been awarded $748,781 for the project Help wanted: The dynamics of AI-driven recruitment and selection.
This project will explore how AI capability is developed by technology vendors, deployed by recruiters and used by job candidates.
Findings from three integrated studies will build new theoretical understandings of the social and technical implications of AI-enabled recruitment.
“The increasing use of AI in the recruitment and selection of job candidates is widely acknowledged but not well understood,” Professor McDonald said.
“AI-enabled recruitment offers substantial value to employers but has a significant and unchecked influence on jobseekers. This work will assist in the development of governance principles, industry practice standards and strategies to assist jobseekers, that promote transparency, privacy and equality in the Australian labour market.”
Other team members include fellow chief investigator Associate Professor Penelope Williams, of the QUT School of Management, and Associate Professor Ben Matthews, from The University of Queensland.
Chief investigators Associate Professor Kathleen Mullen, from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics, and Dr David Marshall, form QUT’s Central Analytical Research Facility, have been awarded $493,106 for the project, Unlocking the secrets of dynamic supramolecular systems.
Professor Mullen said the research aimed to address the critical challenges in realising the promise of switchable, supramolecular assemblies as valuable catalysts, chemical sensors or functional molecular devices.
“Smart switchable materials have attracted much attention due to their potential applications in drug delivery, smart coatings, and soft robotics, however, rational design of self-assembled supramolecular systems that undergo controlled switching is inhibited by a lack of understanding of the fundamental mechanisms controlling these dynamic processes,” Professor Mullen said.
“This project will use cutting-edge ion mobility mass spectrometry technologies to gain new insights into controlling switchable processes in supramolecular materials stimulated by light, heat, or electricity.
“By monitoring these processes in real-time, we will have a window through which we can develop greater understanding of switching mechanisms for future functional materials.”
Dr Aaron Snoswell, Professor Jean Burgess.
Associate Professor Michelle Riedlinger, from the QUT School of Communication, has been awarded $512,091 for the project Generative AI and the future of academic writing and publishing.
Examining the impact of Generative AI technologies on scholarly research and publishing, the project aims to investigate how these tools are shaping the future of academic research from search to publication, including how academic publishers and peak research advisory bodies are responding to the potential of these technologies.
Professor Riedlinger said the project will develop a framework for understanding the social and technical drivers shaping the debate and inform cross-sector principles to promote a more consistent and critical response by key stakeholders.
“In doing so, we hope to support ongoing learning within scholarly communities for a more responsive national research system, optimising GenAI for public good,” she said.
Other team members include Professor Peta Mitchell, Professor Jean Burgess and Dr Aaron Snoswell, also from the QUT School of Communication, and Dr Jake Goldenfein from Melbourne Law School.
From left: Dr Yang Yang, Professor Honxia Wang.
The project Novel transparent electrodes for efficient bifacial perovskite solar cells, led by Professor Hongxia Wang from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics, has been awarded $748,746.
The research aims to design a transparent electrode composed of a dielectric-metal-dielectric (DMD) structure with required optical and electrical properties for bifacial semitransparent perovskite solar cells (ST-PSCs).
“We hope to gain new knowledge of how properties of the dielectric materials and metal layer control the transmittance, conductivity and work function as well as stability of the transparent electrodes, and subsequently their performance in ST-PSCs,” Professor Wang said.
“The important research outcomes will facilitate the development of efficient ST-PSCs in practice such as building-integrated photovoltaics (PVs), and place Australia at the forefront of the field.”
Also involved in the project as a chief investigator is Dr Yang Yang from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics.
From left: Dr Konstantin Faershteyn, Dr Michael Jones, Professor Cheng Yan.
The project Chemo-mechanical behaviour in all-solid-state lithium metal batteries, by Professor Cheng Yan from the QUT School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, has been awarded $683,413.
Currently available commercial lithium-ion batteries do not satisfy the increasing demands of portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, due to low energy densities, safety issues and high cost. High-capacity electrode materials such as lithium metal anode and nitrogen-rich cathode together with solid-state electrolytes have been confirmed as promising alternatives.
However, as Professor Yan said, poor interface stability and material failure remain significant challenges.
“This project aims to solve these coupled chemo-mechanical problems through in situ characterisation and advanced modelling technologies,” he said.
“The expected outcomes will help develop next generation batteries and fill the key knowledge gaps in broad energy materials.”
Other team members include Dr Michael Jones, from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics, and Dr Konstantin Faershteyn, from the QUT Central Analytical Research Facility.
Professor Cheng Yan has also received $672,413 for the project Developing Sustainable Hard Carbon for High Performance Sodium-Ion Battery.
Sodium-ion batteries demonstrate a great potential to replace expensive lithium-ion batteries for energy storage as sodium is low-cost, safe and abundant as compared to lithium. However, the larger radius of sodium ions often leads to a sluggish kinetics process, and they cannot intercalate into commonly used anode materials like graphite.
“This project aims to investigate the atomic level sodium storage mechanism in hard carbon and develop a novel green hydrothermal carbonisation process to obtain spherical microstructures via combined experiment and atomistic modelling,” Professor Yan said.
“This project will not only fill the knowledge gaps in developing high performance SIBs but guide the establishment of sustainable hard carbon manufacture industry.”
Professor Zhanying Zhang, from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering and the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy, is also involved in the project.
The project New mathematical models for brain tissue microstructure imaging, led by Dr Qianqian Yang of the QUT School of Mathematical Sciences, has been awarded $592,000.
Diffusion-MRI is a modern imaging technique for neuroscientists to non-invasively study the brain’s structures. However, the mechanism underlying diffusion-MRI signal formation, due to the movement of water molecules in complex brain tissue is still unclear, Dr Yang explained.
“This project aims to develop the next generation mathematical framework to interpret and model diffusion-weighted MRI signals, surpassing the capability of conventional mathematical models, such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI),” she said.
“Expected outcomes include novel mathematical and computational approaches enabling more sensitive and specific imaging markers for characterising brain tissue microstructure. The mathematical tools developed will advance the state of the art in diffusion MRI data analysis and benefit both researchers and clinicians.”
Other team members include Associate Professor Viktor Vegh from The University of Queensland and Associate Professor Marco Palombo from Cardiff University.
Associate Professor Wayde Martens
Professor Huai-Yong Zhu, from QUT School of Chemistry and Physics, will lead the project Using a light-induced, field-gradient to promote homogeneous catalysis, which has received funding of $626,022.
Professor Zhu said the project aimed to advance understanding of light-matter interactions and explore parameters of a versatile photocatalyst design to achieve high-turnover chemical synthesis with minimal catalyst waste.
The research team comprises chief investigators Professor Zhu, Professor Eric Waclawik, and Associate Professor Wayde Martens, all from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics.
(Main image above:
Back row (left to right): Dr Maryam Haghighat, Professor Eric Waclawik, Professor Scott McCue, Dr Yang Yang, Dr Qianqian Yang, Professor Zhanying Zhang, Associate Professor Hendrik Frisch
Front row (left to right): Dr Kien Nguyen, Professor Hongxia Wang, Professor Cheng Yan, Associate Professor Kathleen Mullen, Dr Dimity Miller, Dr Michael Dallaston.)
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