Professor Paul Dastoor
Director
P: +61 2 4921 5426
E: Paul.Dastoor@newcastle.edu.au
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Dr Paul Dastoor is an Associate Professor in Physics in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and director of the Centre for Organic Electronics at the University of Newcastle in Australia.
He received his B.A. degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1990 and his PhD in Surface Physics, also from the University of Cambridge, in 1995. After completing his doctorate he joined the Surface Chemistry Department at British Steel in 1994 before taking up his present appointment at the University of Newcastle in 1995. He was an EPSRC Visiting Research Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, UK in 2002 and a CCLRC Visiting Research Fellow at the Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire, UK in 2004 – 05.
His research interests encompass the growth and properties of thin films, surface coatings and organic electronic devices based on semi-conducting polymers. His research programme has attracted significant external funding (both domestic and overseas), including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, AusIndustry, the Australian Synchrotron Research Programme, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), UK.
Since 1996, he has been a CI on grants totalling in excess of $8.7M, with funding of $6.4M since 2002. He has published over 50 papers in refereed journals with 37 publications in the last 5 years. He also has extensive commercialisation experience with 3 patents and through his spin-off company (Keystone Product Developments Pty Ltd) has raised over $600k to commercialise new medical device technology that is currently being prepared for clinical trial.
He has over 8 years of experience of using soft X-ray synchrotron facilities including the Photon Factory at Tsukuba, Japan, the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory at Pohang, South Korea, the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, at Hsinchu, Taiwan and the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley, USA. His synchrotron work is aimed at understanding the structure and morphology of solar cells made from semi-conducting polymers – these exciting materials offer the tantalising prospect of paints that generate electricity directly from sunlight.