SciX@UNSW

• Project type(s)
  Chemistry, Medical 

• Project focus
  Laboratory 

Project overview
All life starts from one single cell. That cell then divides into two, four, eight...but sometimes, things go wrong. One cell gets mutated and becomes a cancer cell. How can we catch this difference early? How can we use this knowledge to battle cancer? In this project, students will use advanced microscopy to see how cancer cells are different from healthy cells and investigate how we can use the differences to battle cancer cells.

What will students do?
Students will use microscopy to examine the difference between healthy and normal cells, analysing the data using computer programs. For additional data for analysis and comparison, students will have access to a secondary dataset of cell sizes. 

Areas of student interest

• cell biology
• biochemistry
• cancer biology

Mentor: Dr Cong Vu - Research Associate, School of Chemistry
Dr Cong Vu is a postdoctoral research associate in nanomedicine. His research focuses on designing nanoparticle technology to target cancer cells over healthy cells. He is also founding a start-up company called “Nanosoils”, which is incubated with the Department of Primary Industries. His team hopes to maximise the benefit of agrochemicals for farmers and minimise the residues for environments using nanotechnology.

• Project area
  Physics 

• Project type
  Computational

Project overview
Have you ever wondered how astronomers use observations of thousands of objects to better understand the Universe? How do we interpret data from telescopes to test physical models? Modern astronomy combines simulations and observations to solve outstanding theoretical problems such as how stars affect the formation and evolution of their planets, how galaxies change over time and how stars end their lives.

What will students do?
Students will be taught how to access and process astronomical data using Python. They’ll be supported in designing and investigating their own individual hypotheses with these data. Research questions to be explored might include determining the relationship between stellar chemical abundances and the occurrence of giant planets, the connection between the properties of galaxies and their dynamics, and the properties of stars at different stages of their lives.

Prerequisites

• physics
• mathematics 

Areas of student interest

• astronomy
• astrophysics
• simulations
• programming

Lead academic: Benjamin Montet - Scientia Senior Lecturer, School of Physics

My team and I develop methods to better understand exoplanets - worlds orbiting stars other than our Sun. Using data from the NASA Kepler and TESS missions, we build tools to discover planets previously missed in the data and to better measure their physical parameters. We also use the same data to observe signatures of stellar magnetic activity, such as starspots and flares. We use these observations to parameterise how stellar magnetism changes across time and with stellar properties in order to understand what factors might drive planetary habitability, both for planets around other stars and in our own Solar System.

Mentor: Brendan McKee
Brendan is a first-year PhD student in the School of Physics at UNSW. A long-held interest in space drove him into learning more about exoplanets. His research involves exploring the dynamics of exoplanetary systems to learn about the planets they contain. Determining the size and mass of a planet allows us to know what it is made of and whether it could be suitable for life. Outside of research, he likes to play video games and read novels.

Mentor: Aman Khalid 
Aman is a PhD student at the School of Physics at UNSW. During undergraduate research projects, he developed a keen interest in the field of galaxy formation and evolution. His PhD research focuses on the characterisation of tidal features in modern cosmological simulations. A galaxy’s tidal features tell us more about the kinds of galaxy-galaxy interactions it has undergone recently.

Mentor: Claudia Reyes
Claudia Reyes is currently a PhD student in the School of Physics at UNSW. She has a master's degree in observational astrophysics as well as a degree in engineering. Her research area is asteroseismology, where she studies stellar oscillations that can arise from star-quakes. These quakes, just like earthquakes, involve pressure waves that travel through the stellar cavity and carry valuable information about the star's internal structure. In her research, Claudia incorporates stellar evolution software to model the observed oscillations.

• Project type(s)
  Engineering, Physics 

• Project focus
  Laboratory

Project overview
Biomimicking materials and 3D printing are two rapidly growing and popular fields with applications in a range of areas like medicine, diagnostics, energy storage and production etc. Learn how we can combine these two exciting fields together to create functional devices for medical and environmental monitoring. Inspired by the vibrant colours displayed by some of the most beautiful creatures and objects in nature like butterflies, beetles and opals, materials scientists have, for a long-time, been trying to mimic these into artificial materials. Using innovative materials fabrication techniques, we have developed sponge-like porous materials that mimic the principles of light modulation in nature. 3D printing is an emerging manufacturing technology that is pushing the boundaries beyond the conventional manufacturing methods that are restrictive and wasteful. In the last decade, 3D printing has become a household name with benchtop 3D printers becoming extremely affordable enabling rapid development and prototyping. Combining biomimicking materials with advanced 3D printing can open doors for the development of devices and tools that could not even be imagined previously. There are endless possibilities of creating devices that can be personalised or purpose-built.

What will students do?
Students will use their creativity to create new patterns for biomimicking porous photonic crystals to use as colour changing sensors. Students will then learn 3D CAD designing and 3D printing to create patterns and utilise their 3D printed patterns to carry out device prototyping and experimental validation of the sensors.

Areas of student interest

• inventors
• materials science
• fundamental sciences
• nanomaterials
• 3D designing and printing

Relevant subjects (not essential)

• chemistry
• physics

Lead academic: Dr Tushar Kumeria – Senior Lecturer, School of Materials Science and Engineering
Tushar's research focuses on a range of sponge-like porous materials for applications in drug delivery, sensing and tissue engineering. Current projects are aimed at developing materials for the delivery of sensitive drug payloads for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases and sensing of receptor-ligand interaction at cell membrane.

Mentor: Ayad Saed - PhD Student
Ayad is working on developing new types of biomimicking porous materials to use in optical sensors. He has a strong background and interest in nanomaterials and sensing. Ayad is using simple electrochemical fabrication and combining his creativity to generate new multi-layered porous photonic crystals that can be used in designing sensors for medical and environmental applications. Besides research, he likes to watch and play football, and cook.

• Project type(s)
  Biology

• Project focus
  Computational 

Project overview
As a discipline, cognitive science explores how the brain takes in information about the world, how it represents information about the world, and how it uses it. Through elegant experiments, cognitive scientists have learned a lot about processes like perception, attention, memory, and decision making. This has allowed researchers to better understand how these processes influence our well-being.

What will students do?
In this project, students will learn about classic studies in this field and will have the opportunity to work with data from well-established tasks, collected online from participants across the world. Working with their mentor, students will create unique hypotheses based on the tasks used in their study.

Students will then learn how to analyse data so that they can draw a conclusion related to their hypotheses. To do this they will use modern tools that help scientists understand, analyse and visualise information.

Areas of student interest

• cognitive science
• psychology
• data analysis
• well-being

Lead academic: Dr Steven Most - Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology
Steven's research is grounded in cognitive psychology, with strong links to social psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience. His lab specialises in relationships between motivation, emotion and attentional control. Topics include mechanisms of emotion-driven attentional bias, how attention and emotion shape our awareness of the world, impacts of physical and emotional stress on cognition, and emotion regulation. The lab also specialises in understanding the implications of these processes for real-world safety, including on the roadways. Steven is also passionate about fostering understanding of psychology outside the university.

Mentor: Kip Elder
Kip is a psychology PhD student at UNSW, presently studying how storytelling and curiosity shape how we perceive and remember the world around us. He has a background in health psychology, having studied placebo and nocebo effects (placebo's dark side). He is also an experienced screenwriter, cycle tourer, rock climber, an amateur statistician, and once wrote a sea shanty of which he was quite proud.

Mentor: Jamie Dracup
Jamie is an associate lecturer at UNSW, who enjoys teaching. He has a PhD in behavioural neuroscience, where he investigated brain cells involved in how we respond to threats. He currently carries out online research which investigates mental health and well-being. When he isn't working, he is often planning his next trip to the movies or seeing if any of his favourite bands are on tour. 

• Project area(s)
  Electrochemistry, Solid-state Synthesis

• Project type(s)
  Chemistry, Engineering

Project overview
This project will look at how battery materials are developed, how research-scale batteries are made and most importantly how the battery performance parameters are measured. Particular emphasis will be placed on looking at electrode materials in different battery chemistries and looking at the sources of variation in the examination and subsequent analysis. Batteries are all around us. Different battery chemistries are used for different applications depending on aspects such as energy storage density, cost and power. For example, lead acid batteries are used for starter motors in conventional petroleum vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries were commercialised in 1991 and the scientists/engineers working on this were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2019. Lithium-ion batteries power mobile phones, laptops and electronic devices and are being widely used in electric vehicles and grid scale energy storage, e.g., the Hornsdale plant in South Australia. There still remain challenges in lithium-ion batteries, ranging from energy storage density to safety to cost. In order to develop the next generation of battery materials and entirely new battery chemistries, we need research and development. This project will give students a taste of this.

What will students do?
Students will be shown how research-scale lithium-ion batteries are made. From the electrode active materials, to electrode preparation and finally to coin cell assembly. This will either be via a session in the laboratory or via online videos/walk-through. Following this students will be given electrochemical performance data also known as charge-discharge curves. They will be able to compare the performance of each cycle and after a number of cycles. They can compare between batteries of the same electrodes/composition, between electrodes of different compositions and between entirely different battery systems (e.g., next generation sodium-ion and lithium-sulfur batteries).

Areas of student interest

• energy & batteries
• electrochemistry
• designing new materials
• solid-state chemistry
• structure-property relations

Preequisites (not essential)

• physics
• chemistry

Lead academic: A/Prof Neeraj Sharma - Associate Professor, School of Chemistry
Neeraj’s research interests are based on solid state chemistry, designing new materials and investigating their structure-property relationships. He aims to design then fully characterise useful new materials, placing them into real-world devices such as batteries and solid oxide fuel cells, and then characterise how they work in these devices. He loves to undertake in situ or operando experiments of materials inside full devices, especially batteries, in order to elucidate the structural subtleties that lead to superior performance parameters. Neeraj’s projects are typically highly collaborative working with colleagues from all over the world with a range of skillsets.

Mentor: Lisa Djuandhi – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Lisa is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry at UNSW. She is working on the optimisation of lithium-sulfur batteries using disordered and amorphous organic materials. Working with new compounds often means dealing with systems that exhibit unusual behaviours that are not easily characterised using routine techniques. Developing targeted strategies for characterisation relies on a strong fundamental understanding of the intra- and intermolecular interactions involved in a particular material. This work has equipped Lisa with a practical understanding of multiple battery chemistries and experience in a diverse range of characterisation techniques including solid-state NMR, X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) and Raman spectroscopy. In her spare time, Lisa enjoys knitting, painting and Muay Thai kickboxing.

Mentor: Jian Peng – PhD student
Jian is currently a second-year PhD student in the School of Chemistry at UNSW. Jian is working on the thermal stability of widely used Li-ion cathode materials, such as lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) and lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC). By applying electrochemically activated syntheses, Jian investigates the phase evolution of cathodes at different charge states. Jian has also collaborated with a battery-waste recycling company, focusing on the electrochemical properties of recycled electrode materials. Outside of work, Jian has a great passion for photography (using both digital and film cameras) and sports. 

• Project type(s)
  Chemistry, Medical

Project overview
Medicinal chemistry is the science of developing new drugs to treat diseases. Medicinal chemistry has saved countless human lives, and has alleviated untold suffering during the 20th – 21st centuries. And it continues to be a vitally important endeavour today: for example, at this very moment, medicinal chemists are working feverishly around the globe to discover a cure for COVID-19. When developing a new medicine, it's important to ensure that the molecule can travel to the correct location within the body. As part of this, a careful balance must be struck between the molecule’s solubility in water (which enables the drug to be swallowed as a tablet, and dissolve in the gut) and its solubility in fat (which enables the drug to cross the lining of the gut and get into the bloodstream).

What will students do?
Medicinal chemists can alter the structure of a drug molecule in order to fine-tune its properties such as water/fat solubility and thereby identify the optimal drug. In this SciX experiment, students will do just that: they will systematically modify the structure of a drug candidate and they'll measure the properties of their “analogues” to identify which chemical structure gives the best drug-like properties. This experiment will give students an insight into the grand challenge that is medicine development in the 21st century.

Prerequisites

• chemistry

Areas of student interest

• medicinal chemistry
• organic chemistry
• synthesis
• experimental lab-based chemistry
• medicines

Lead academic: Dr Siobhan Wills - Lecturer, School of Chemistry
Siobhan is an organic chemist by training, but also studied languages at university. She used her “international science” degree to study and work in Europe, focusing on making small molecules for solutions in medicinal chemistry and crop science. When she returned to Australia, she decided she loved being surrounded by all kinds of scientific research, but preferred to teach people about the amazing discoveries rather than being in the lab all the time. She took on a role as an education-focused lecturer. Now, Siobhan concentrates on teaching and researching how best to teach and communicate chemistry. She thinks it’s the best of both worlds, but admits she might be biased.

Lead academic: A/Prof Luke Hunter - Associate Professor, School of Chemistry
Luke is an organic chemist whose research program aims to discover new molecules that can treat diseases. Luke's lab specialises in making fluorinated molecules, where the fluorine atom is designed to cause the molecule to “fold up” into a shape that is pre-organised for binding to the biological target. Something like molecular origami. As is typical for a medicinal chemist, Luke interacts a lot with collaborators in other disciplines such as biology, pharmacology and medicine. Outside work, Luke loves reading, music and trying to keep up with his kids on a skateboard.

Mentor: Patrick (Paddy) Ryan - PhD student
Paddy is a 2nd year PhD student working in medicinal chemistry. Specifically, he tries to make medicines that are more efficient and safer by changing little bits of a molecule at a time or swapping out groups of atoms for fluorine atoms. Paddy loves science and research because discovery is fun. It's an awesome feeling when you find out something interesting, sometimes agonisingly frustrating when things don't go to plan, but rewarding when you realise you have finally made something truly new. Outside of chemistry, Paddy enjoys sport, surfing and cooking to name just a few. He also has a dog, Billie, who is the best. 

Mentor: Jason Holland - PhD student
Jason is a current 3rd year PhD student researching nanomedicine. Jason researches the synthesis and application of coordination polymers called Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs), which are highly tunable, ultraporous materials. His current research aims to use MOFs to make ‘theranostic’ drug delivery vehicles for chemotherapy. Jason has interests in both scientific research and industry translation, completing an industry mentorship program in the MedTech Pharma sector in 2020. Prior to undertaking his PhD, Jason was employed as a forensic chemist, undertaking forensic casework for the Illicit Drugs Analysis Unit, Forensic Analytical Science Service. Jason has interests in many fields including advanced materials science, forensic science, drug discovery and clinical translation.

• Project type(s)
  Biology, Earth and Environmental Science

• Project focus
  Fieldwork

Project overview
Our rocky shores are a place of incredible biodiversity - home to juvenile fish, colourful seaweeds and cryptic octopuses. This project will teach you about where different rocky shore species live and why. Understanding the distribution of species within a habitat is important and can be used to monitor the impacts of climate change. Species distributions are important for understanding how whole ecosystems function. The rocky shore is a great place to see this concept in action because there is a huge variety in environmental factors (temperature, water retention, habitat type) over a very small area. Marine ecologists use these same foundational skills across a wide variety of ecological fields, such as monitoring the effects of climate change and sea level rise and how these are impacting species distributions and interactions.

What will students do?
Students will have the opportunity to learn about biodiversity in the marine environment, using methods that marine scientists often use during their research. Students will also learn how to ID some of the most common species on the rocky shore as well as use microscopes to find tiny organisms living within seaweed. Students will also learn some basic statistical analysis to be able to test hypotheses about how marine biodiversity changes in different situations. With a range of possible organisms and factors to investigate, this project can be tailored to your interests.

Areas of student interest

• marine biology
• field-based science
• ecological statistics

Relevant subjects (not essential)

• biology
• earth & environmental science

Lead academic: Dr Mariana Mayer Pinto - Scientia Fellow, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Science 
Mariana's research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underpinning biodiversity and the functioning of marine ecosystems. In particular, she is interested in how anthropogenic stressors, such as contamination and urbanisation, affect the marine environment with the ultimate goal of developing evidence-based solutions for not only mitigating their impacts, but also restoring and rehabilitating marine ecosystems.

Mentor: Orla McKibbin - PhD student
Originally from Queensland, Orla completed both her Bachelor of Science and honours year at UNSW. She is particularly interested in applied marine ecology and tangible solutions to global marine issues. She is currently waiting for summer to arrive and trying to learn to knit (as well as completing her PhD). Her research is investigating how coastal marine ecosystems are impacted by habitat modifications and what we can do to increase seawall community functioning.

Mentor: Josee Hart - PhD student
Josee moved to Sydney from Port Macquarie to complete her Bachelor of Science and Honours at UNSW. She is interested in how we can improve restoration and management in our estuaries by knowing more about the ecology of key species, such as oysters and seagrasses.  Josee is now a PhD student at UNSW, looking at how seagrasses can affect the sediments they grow in and loves getting out in the field.

Mentor: Hannah Wesley - PhD student
Hannah completed her Bachelor of Science and honours in marine science at USYD last year. Her research focuses on how habitat restoration can improve functioning across multiple systems. Hannah is now a PhD student at UNSW researching how salt marsh restoration influences infaunal diversity and sediment functioning.

• Project type(s)
  Chemistry, Physics 

• Project focus
  Computational

Project overview
At the forefront of technology, computational quantum chemistry has become a crucial tool in our understanding of chemistry allowing us to study the properties and processes that govern deep down at the molecular and atomistic levels. A very important application of computational quantum chemistry is that we can simulate how bonds in molecules vibrate and see how it leads to spectra in the infrared (Module 8, HSC Chemistry). Knowing the infrared spectra of molecules is essential in research as it can help us find unexpected molecules produced by life (biosignatures) in remote worlds; model the global warming potential of new compounds released into the atmosphere; and even trace down countries that are violating international agreements by burning too many fossil fuels. This project introduces the key concepts used in computational quantum chemistry, exploring its applications in multiple research fields.

What will students do?
Students will delve into the area of computational quantum chemistry, familiarising and employing research-level computer programs. Throughout the summer school, students will pursue a research project of their choice with the help of experienced PhD-student mentors, developing and improving upon high-valuable skills such as programming, data handling and storage, hypothesis formulation, and figures generation.

Areas of student interest

• biosignatures, scientific search for aliens
• exoplanets, astrophysics
• spectroscopy
• quantum chemistry & physics
• computational chemistry

Relevant subjects (not essential)

• chemistry
• physics

Lead academic: Dr Laura McKemmish - Senior Lecturer, School of Chemistry 
Laura considers herself to be a quantum chemist and molecular physicist. Her expertise is in theoretical and computational modelling of molecules, particularly their spectroscopy. She loves interdisciplinary work and combining interesting methods with interesting applications. One characteristic of her scientific research is to look at new ways of investigating and solving particular problems that are inspired by a unusual perspective, such as from the lens of a different field. Away from work, Laura loves hobbies and crafts of all descriptions, such as soap-making, paint by numbeers, diamond art and jigsaw puzzles.

Mentor: Juan Camilo Zapata Trujillo
Juan is a PhD student in the School of Chemistry at UNSW. He uses computational molecular spectroscopy to help astronomers identify molecules related to signs of alien life in outer space. Originally from Colombia, Juan enjoys cooking authentic Colombian food and is always happy to give approximate translations from Aussie to Colombian slang. The one thing that Juan loves the most about Australia is TimTams - literally, the best chocolate biscuits ever made in human history, so he says.

Mentor: Maria Pettyjohn
Maria is a PhD student in the School of Chemistry at UNSW. She uses computational molecular spectroscopy to identify molecules that can tell us about the process of star and planet formation. She credits Star Trek partly for her love of astronomy and molecules—maybe there is coffee in some star-forming cloud? Being from Canada and a 12-hour drive from the closest ocean, she plans on utilising Sydney’s proximity to the ocean to take up snorkelling.

• Project type
  Physics

• Project focus
  Experimental, Computational

Project overview
Quantum computing is the latest tech innovation promising to change the way we do science. When we make components of computers small enough, they start to follow the rules of quantum physics, which produces some very strange results. In the last few decades, we’ve realised that we can use this to our advantage. The properties of quantum mechanics can be used to solve extremely large problems, from modelling the weather or the economy, to cracking codes. The very first quantum computers are being built right now, all over the world.

What will students do?
Students will get to use a real quantum computer, located in IBM’s quantum computing laboratory. Using the online IBM Q Experience program, they will run a variety of quantum algorithms on both a simulator and a quantum computer and compare the results to determine the accuracy of the quantum computer.

Prerequisites

• physics
• mathematics 

Lead Academic: Thomas Dixon -  Associate Lecturer, School of Physics
Tom completed his PhD in Physics in 2021, where he used high-powered lasers to manipulate small-scale objects. Tom now runs the first-year teaching lab in the School of Physics and runs many high school outreach events, including teaching HSC Physics. Tom is interested in the principles and practices of experimental physics alongside space science, satellites and lasers.

Mentor: Sam Sutherland  
Sam has a master’s degree in physics from the University of Oxford and is currently working towards a PhD in quantum computing with Professor Michelle Simmons. Sam’s research focuses on near-term algorithms for NISQ (Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum) devices, such as the silicon devices being created at UNSW. Sam loves physics and computer science, and quantum computing is the nexus between the two. He wants to be at the forefront of this exciting new technology as it emerges. Outside of work, Sam enjoys climbing, gymnastics and playing the trombone. 

Mentor: Ian Thorvaldsen 
Ian is a PhD student studying at UNSW, working on the simulation of experimental quantum devices to assist the experiments currently being done by Prof. Michelle Simmons’ group. He did a combined bachelor’s degree in computer science and physics at UNSW, culminating in a research honours year working with Prof. Simmons’ group. During his undergraduate degree, he also worked with some other research groups at UNSW, namely Prof. Alex Hamilton and Prof. Oleg Sushkov. Through these experiences, Ian was inspired to pursue a research career in quantum computing, allowing him to combine both physical and computational research. He is excited to see the real-world applications of quantum computing be realised in the near future.