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Media Release

November 15 2011

UniSA’s young researchers win $1.5 million for key research

$1.5 million in ARC support for UniSA's young researchers Early career researchers at the University of South Australia have secured more than $1.5 million to fund four key projects in nanotechnology, wireless communications technology and cultural studies under the new Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher funding scheme.

The latest grants bring the University’s total new ARC funding awarded for 2012 to almost $6.7 million.

UniSA Vice Chancellor Professor Peter Høj says the aim of the latest grants is to provide support for up and coming researchers to help them to build their research base here in Australia and to encourage their exploration of key areas of importance to the economy and society.

“I think our results this year reflect a growing confidence in UniSA’s capacity to deliver world class research from clever and dedicated researchers,” Prof Høj said.

“Following our results in the first Excellence in Research Australia assessment in January, where about 70 per cent of our research was world class or above world class, UniSA is increasing its research quality and capacity.

“A big part of our future success will depend of the encouragement and support we provide for our early career researchers.”

Prof Høj said the four successful grant recipients should be proud of their achievement in what is a highly competitive research environment.

“For every research project that is successful there are many more, also deserving, that do not get support,” he said.

The successful projects include two in nanotechnology from the Ian Wark Research Institute.

Dr Haolan Xu will be working on an examination of crystal growth in a bid to inform the development of pathways for the synthesis of nanomaterials for nanodevices and nanotechnology. This fundamental research will broaden knowledge of crystal growth and colloid science.

Colleague at The Wark, Dr Jingfang Zhou, has won support for fundamental research into one of the most high-potential aspects of materials processing science. She will be working to develop a method for shaping and sorting nano particles using a microfluidic approach. Her work will examine the effect of the shape of particles on their adsorption at an oil/water interface.

Dr Gilbert Caluya from UniSA’s Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding will be taking on an important study to look at the way Muslim intimacy has become politicized. Increasingly anti-Muslim sentiment is being justified by the assertion that Islam oppresses women. Dr Caluya will research the impact of these stereotypes on the development of attitudes and policy in Australia around migrant and border security.

Dr Khoa D Nguyen, from UniSA’s Institute for Telecommunications Research will research novel communications strategies in a bid to revolutionise wireless control systems. The research aims to deliver fundamental theories and cutting-edge technologies for communications in control applications.

 

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