UNSW scientists honoured with ARC Industry Laureates

Scientia Professor Justin Gooding and Professor David Keith have been named among eight new ARC laureates, receiving funding to further their work in wearable electrochemical sensors and ecosystem management respectively.

UNSW Sydney has secured two prestigious Industry Laureate Fellowships announced by the Australian Research Council (ARC) for 2024. The fellowships are a key part of the ARC’s Industry Fellowship Program, which promotes national and international collaboration between key stakeholders in industry and research innovation.

The eight Fellows will share $27 million to lead research projects over five years.

UNSW Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise Professor Nicholas Fisk said, “These Industry Laureates are even harder to get than Discovery Laureates, so hats off today to both David and Justin. UNSW has performed stunningly across the first two rounds of Industry Laureates, securing top slot with 25 per cent of those awarded nationally.

“Any Laureate is the pinnacle of a research career, but Prof. Justin Gooding now joins Prof. Veena Sahajwalla among the very few who have held both.”

Developing wearable electrochemical sensors

UNSW Science Prof. Gooding has been awarded close to $3.7 million to partner with Nutromics Pty Ltd to better understand how electrochemical sensors operate and in turn to bring this newfound technology to the market of wearable sensors for personal wellbeing.

“For 50 years sensor scientists have dreamed of being able to continuously monitor molecular biomarkers other than glucose. With our partners Nutromics, a Melbourne based company, winning the ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship will help change that and give sensing devices with impacts in personal wellbeing, food processing, environmental monitoring and even biosecurity,” Prof. Gooding said.

Prof. Gooding, who was recently recognised by the Australian Academy of Science for his advancements in chemical research, will work on developing biosensing technology for the continuous monitoring of many biomarkers.

The outcomes of this project will include commercial devices sold globally, training of the next generation of entrepreneurial researchers and the building of a sensing ecosystem right here in Australia. This will place Australia as the global leader in this powerful new era of wearable sensors. 

Sustaining healthy ecosystems

Professor David Keith of UNSW Science’s School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences will receive $2.5 million to bring his expertise in environmental science to a project designed to help sustain healthy ecosystems, with benefits to the health, social, economic and cultural wellbeing of all Australians.

Australian ecosystems are under increasing pressure, causing declines in biodiversity and natural capital. These assets are vital to Australia’s culture and economy. According to Australia’s new Nature Positive Plan, failure to prevent ongoing decline stems from inadequate whole-ecosystem management which is linked to a lack of fit-for-purpose national ecosystem inventory.

“This award provides an opportunity to build on Australia's world leadership in ecosystem conservation science,” Prof. Keith said.

“I look forward to working with government and industry partners to ensure that the uptake of world class science produces on-ground outcomes for Australian ecosystems and all people who depend on them.”

Prof. Keith’s project will work with Commonwealth, state and international partners to develop foundations for leading the nature positive ecosystem conservation agenda.

Driving collaboration between research and industry

ARC Acting Chief Executive Officer, Dr Richard Johnson, said that the new Industry Laureate Fellowships, will help support strategic engagement between universities and industry, and will contribute to addressing industry-identified challenges and opportunities.

“I am looking forward to seeing the research outcomes and milestones achieved by these researchers, and how these will be translated for the benefit of the Australian community – from ecosystem conservation to safekeeping Indigenous cultural heritage.”

Early Career Industry Fellowships

In additional news, UNSW researchers have been awarded more than $1.5 million in ARC Early Career Industry Fellowships. The funding is to help build innovation in the industry, community organisation, not-for-profit, and other government and publicly funded research sectors, and to facilitate the adoption, translation and commercialisation of Australian research over time.

The successful recipients include:

From UNSW Engineering:

• Dr Nard Dumoulin Stuyck, working with industry partner DIRAQ, who will receive $464,961 to build a new testing platform that’s critical to advancing quantum computing
• Dr Dylan McConnell, working with industry partner The Superpower Institute, who will receive $448,638 to develop comprehensive modelling tools to help Australian policymakers to maximise the nation’s economic opportunities in renewable energy
• Dr Ze Jiang, working with industry partner WaterNSW, who will receive $308,194 to craft a reservoir flow forecasting framework to enhance water resource management.
  

From UNSW Science

• Dr Samuel Gorman, working with industry partner Silicon Quantum Computing, who will receive $375,794 to improve the performance of scalable sensors for quantum computing.

More details are available on the ARC website.