Dr Yuen Kuan Yong receives Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence
Dr Yuen Yong, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has received both the 2014 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence and the 2014 Pro Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research Performance, a 'double' that is believed to be a first for the Faculty.
The Vice-Chancellor's Award recognises the commitment of researchers who consistently go 'above and beyond' to deliver exceptional results. The Pro Vice-Chancellor's Award recognises the demonstrated excellence of an individual researcher in their field.
"It is humbling to be part of the outstanding nanosystems
and mechatronics research groups at the University. I am deeply honoured to
receive these awards and thrilled that my research has been recognised at both
the national and international levels", says Dr Yong.
"Winning these awards really encourages me in my future research and I hope that the attention will generate more interest among students to conduct research higher degrees in this field."
Following her initial appointment to the University as a research academic in 2007, Dr Yong was appointed as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2012 and then to her current position as ARC DECRA Fellow in the Laboratory for Dynamics and Control of Nanosystems in 2013, where she is the Lab Manager.
Her research interests include the design and control of nano-positioning systems, high-speed atomic force microscopy (AFM), finite-element analysis of smart materials and structures, sensing and actuation, and the design and control of insect robots.
Dr Yong and her colleagues have had international success in their endeavours with a world-first innovation of a high-speed nanopositioner, with the resulting paper being the most cited in the publishing journal since its publication in 2009.
Dr Yong and her colleagues were the first in the field to develop two novel scan patterns for high-speed AFM applications, the first of which improved the imaging speed of a commercial AFM by 100 times, the second of which allowed them to achieve high-quality video-rate AFM images at speeds which cannot be achieved by existing commercial AFMs.
"The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) has revolutionised nanotechnology research and the way researchers study the smallest aspects of life," explains Dr Yong.
"My research work has been aligned towards enhancing the performance of AFM by improving its precision, accuracy and speed. It is both motivating and rewarding to know that my research outcomes have contributed to the cutting edge research of nanotechnology."
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