27 June 2012

The University of Queensland congratulates 11 researchers named as 2011-2012 Queensland International Fellows.

UQ Vice-Chancellor (Professor Debbie Terry) said the State Government’s Queensland International Fellowships supported globally-minded researchers to undertake projects with international colleagues.

“The fellowships, with a total value of $216,000, will foster high quality discovery by UQ people working for advances in health, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and energy.

“Our Queensland International Fellows will collaborate with peers from some globally renowned institutes in Belgium, China, France, Germany, Japan and the USA.

“International collaboration has been shown to heighten the impact of published Australian research, making this funding an investment in the reputation of Queensland research and in our state’s attractiveness to international talent and investment,” Professor Terry said.

The Fellows will follow in the footsteps of 16 previous Queensland International Fellows from UQ announced last year.

The Minister for Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts, the Hon Ros Bates announced the fellowships and launched the Queensland International Fellowship Alumni Program.

The fellowships will fund collaborative research projects at leading international institutions and agencies.

The announcement was made in conjunction with the 13th International Science and Application Nanotubes Conference (NT12 Conference) at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

UQ recipients are:

AGRICULTURE
• $25,000 — Dr Robert Dixon, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture, Food and Innovation (QAAFI - Increasing reliability of NIRS (bear infrared reflectance spectroscopy) to improve management of cattle nutrition and rangeland vegetation for productivity and sustainability - Walloon Agricultural Research Centre (CRA-W)(Belgum and France).

• $24,750 — Professor Myron Zalucki, UQ School of Biological Sciences - To move or not to move: the genetics of caterpillar foraging behaviour in a model plant system - Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Germany).

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
• $16,000 — Dr Li Li, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) - High-performance nano-engineered catalysts for volatile organic compound elimination - Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (China).

CONSTRUCTION
• $21,000 — Dr Peng Yu, CAST Cooperative Research Centre - Fabrication of Al and Ti based Hollow Sphere Structures (HSSs) - Fraunhofer IFAM Dresden (Germany).

• $20,500 — Dr Ya Feng Yang, UQ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering - Spark Plasma Sintering of Titanium and Titanium Alloy Powders - Osaka University (Japan).

ENERGY
• $17,000 — Professor Han Huang, UQ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering - Deformation and removal of multilayered thin film solar panels in diamond wire sawing - Central South University (China).

• $22,500 — Dr Zhigang Chen, UQ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering - Towards power generation devices for converting waste heat into power energy - California Institute of Technology (USA).

HEALTH/SOCIAL SCIENCE
• $20,000 — Dr Chamindie Punyadeera, AIBN and UQ School of Chemical Engineering - Saving Smokers from Cancer: Saliva DNA Test - Philips Research Laboratories (USA).

• $15,000 — Dr Kylie Tucker, UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Does distribution of stiffness within a muscle underlie movement changes with pain? - University of de Nantes (France).

• $13,742 — Ms Annina Schmid, UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Identification of nerve cell loss in patients with peripheral neuropathies - University of Wuerzburg (Germany).

• $21,000 — Associate Professor Frederic Meunier, Queensland Brain Institute - Deciphering the puzzle of molecular events underpinning neurotransmission using super-resolution microscopy - University of Bordeaux ll (France).

Media: Jan King 0413 601 248.