The University of Queensland has become the first Australian university to introduce awards recognising outstanding performance and leadership potential among research staff.
Seven researchers have been recognised and rewarded for early career research success through the new University of Queensland Foundation Research Excellence Awards.
University Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay said Australia's success in the rapidly changing global research environment was dependent on an ability to attract and retain future leaders of international research. "These awards build on a comprehensive research program underway at the University of Queensland that focuses on developing world-class infrastructure, leading new and innovative projects and securing increased research funding from government and industry," Professor Hay said.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Paul Greenfield said as one of Australia's premier research institutions, the University boasted many researchers of international standing.
"The winners have been selected from a range of research fields including chemistry, chemical engineering, education, human movement studies and zoology. This broad spectrum of disciplines highlights the great diversity of world-class research underway at the University of Queensland," he said. Awardees received a total of $430,000 to further their research. They include:
o Zoology and Entomology Department lecturer Dr Ian Owens ($50,000) (telephone 07 3365 4823). Dr Owens said the awards represented a "quantum leap" in strategic research funding for young researchers and were at a "high level enabling meaningful research to be completed in a relatively short space of time." Dr Owens said his grant would enable him and research assistant Susan Scott to test new immunological methods on birds both in the wild and under laboratory conditions. "We will test whether individual birds who respond well to artificial immunocompetence tests are also the ones who manage and survive diseases in the wild," he said.
o Fred and Eleanor Schonell Special Education Research Centre lecturer Dr Annemaree Carroll ($60,000) (telephone 07 3365 6476). Dr Carroll's research concerns impulsive and deliberate actions of young offenders. "While a lot of delinquency has its origins in early patterns of impulsive and undercontrolled behaviour, there is also a group of adolescents who show no signs of problems prior to about the age of 11 or 12 but who still come under the scrutiny of the criminal justice system later in their teenage years," she said. She said the funds would allow her to produce an interactive multimedia program to track and evaluate young offenders' thinking processes as they made choices and critical decisions leading them to, or not to, committing a crime.
o Human Movement Studies Department principal research fellow Dr Richard Carson ($50,000) (telephone 07 3365 6817). Dr Carson said he would use the award to continue a research program aimed at increasing understanding of the role of the brain's motor cortex and the spinal cord in the control of voluntary movement. "This project will focus on how the activity in the motor cortex, that is required to drive particular movements of one limb on one part of the body, influence our ability to make concurrent movements with other parts of the body," Dr Carson said.
o Chemistry Department researcher Dr Matt Trau ($80,000) (telephone 07 3365 3816). Dr Trau's research group is developing new composite materials for surgical bone implants, to widen the range of options available to patients and surgeons. The worldwide market for such materials is $1 billion a year and growing as the population ages. The group aims to develop an ideal implant material which will possess equivalent mechanical properties to natural bone, allowing the patient to be immediately mobile after surgery. The work targets an implant to be completely resorbed gradually by the body as new natural bone tissue replaces it.
o Chemical Engineering Department Associate Professor Max Lu ($75,000) (telephone 07 3365 3735). Dr Lu's work concerns amazingly small particles with amazingly big possibilities. Nano-catalysts, made of nanometer-scale tiny particles, have superior surface properties and can be used for a variety of purposes including removal of pollutants from gas streams or for making chemicals in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr Lu said he would use part of his award further enhancing his links with leading, international scientists in his research field of nano-catalysts.
o Mathematics Department Research Fellow Dr Darryn Bryant ($60,000) (telephone 07 3365 1342). Dr Bryant is a combinatorial mathematician providing the theoretical underpinnings for several new biotechnology projects. "New applications for combinatorial mathematics are being found all the time," he said. "There are potential future applications in areas such as clone library screening and improved drug design and synthesis techniques."
o Mathematics Department researcher Dr Xian-Zhi (George) Yuan ($55,000) (telephone 07 3365 3251). Applying high-level mathematics to the worlds of finance and engineering is the business of Dr Yuan. He said the award would enhance his academic links with leading world researchers. Dr Yuan is developing more effective mathematical models for extracting information from economic data. "The techniques, in the form of computer models, will provide people such as brokers and risk mangers with more effective mathematical tools on which to base their decisions," he said.
For more information, contact Anthony Havers (telephone 07 3365 3365).
