Faculty Future Fellowships

Three researchers within the Faculty of Science and IT have been awarded prestigious Future Fellowships from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to contribute towards their research developments. 

The successful candidates were announced in July and the highly competitive national Fellowships scheme is awarded to outstanding mid-career researchers who can demonstrate their ability to build partnerships across industry and institutions.

“It was excellent to see that the Faculty had three successful candidates out of the five awarded to the University,” said Faculty Pro-Vice Chancellor, Bill Hogarth.

The Faculty researchers who received the Future Fellowships include Associate Professor Rob Atkin for research within Chemistry, Associate Professor Scott Brown for research within Psychology and Dr Ian Grainge for research within Biology.

Associate Professor Rob Atkin was awarded $713,653 over five years to develop ionic liquids that will reduce the environmental impact and economic cost of manufacturing. Ionic liquids will be used in place of traditional working fluids to increase energy efficiency of lubricants, electrochemical systems and heat transfer liquids.

Ionic liquids have some properties that are like liquids, and other properties that are like solids, which provides many advantages over water and traditional oil based solvents. This project will reveal ways to control ionic liquid properties at the molecular level to produce highly efficient working fluids that will decrease energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Associate Professor Scott Brown was awarded $717,567 over four years to investigate the quantitative theories of cognition and how these will provide better ways to investigate the brain and behaviour. Brown suggests a new way of selecting models based on mathematical techniques which will help focus research activity on theories that provide better accounts of cognition.

For further information on Brown’s research area, click here.

Dr Ian Grainge was awarded $709,318 over five years to investigate the molecular motor FtsK that resides in cells and converts chemical energy into movement. It is a highly conserved protein that is found in most bacteria and plays an important role in the cell, co-ordinating the vital process of cell division and chromosome partitioning and unlinking.

The mechanism used by the motor to convert energy into movement will be examined by using a combination of genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry and structural biology. This will lead to a detailed atomic-level explanation of how this molecular machine functions and will help guide further research into similar molecular machines. With input from the Centre for Chemical Biology, new chemical compounds will be developed to block the motor, which could possibly form the basis for development of a new antibiotic.

The Faculty now has four Future Fellows as Dr Murray Elder from MAPS was successful in the last round. Congratulations to all successful candidates.