Our people
Executive team
Professor Ying (Ian) Chen
Hub Director
Professor Ying (Ian) Chen is the Director of the SafeREnergy Hub, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic guidance of the Hub. He guides the research direction and oversees the performance of the Hub. Professor Chen is also the Chair in Nanotechnology within the Institute for Frontier Materials at Deakin University, leading a world-renowned team in nanomaterials production and commercialisation.
Professor Ian Gentle
Deputy Director & Node Leader (University of Queensland)
Professor Ian Gentle joined the University of Queensland in 1993 following postdoctoral positions at the Research School of Chemistry, ANU and the University of New England. During 2008-2010 he was seconded to the Australian Synchrotron, Clayton, Victoria as Head of Science, returning to UQ in 2011. In 2013 he was appointed Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science, whilst continuing to lead a group in SCMB. In 2015 he was appointed Deputy Executive Dean, Faculty of Science.His team are developing new materials for use as cathodes in high-energy rechargeable batteries, particularly lithium sulfur batteries, and supercapacitors. Materials developed so far show potential increases in energy density of 3-5x that of lithium ion batteries. In this work, funded by industry and State Government, they are working to continue increasing the capacity of Li-S batteries in a new purpose-built facility.
Matthew Nye
Hub Manager
Matthew Nye
Hub Manager
Matthew Nye is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the Hub and acts as the bridge between the projects and the industry partners. He comes to the Hub with over 10 years of Higher Education experience, including management of HDR admission and scholarship processes.
Node leaders
Each University is represented in the Executive Team by a Node Leader. They are responsible for Hub activities within their Node, and for representing their Node at Hub meetings and other events. They are also responsible for reporting on their Node activities and being the liaison point between the Node and Hub leadership and management. The Node Leaders are as follows:
Professor John Bell
University of Southern Queensland
As an outstanding researcher in his area of materials engineering and energy, Professor Bell has led projects in the development of energy efficient smart windows, dye-sensitised solar cell development, and carbonaceous materials. He also has expertise in the area of energy efficiency and occupant comfort in buildings, and has carried out extensive research with industry. Professor Bell has received over $25 million in research funding during his 30-year career as a researcher. He has a wealth of experience and impressive track record in the development of research capacity in terms of research income and HDR completions, as well as national and international research leadership, including the ARC College of Experts and Laureate panels.Professor Bell is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). Prior to joining USQ, Professor Bell was the Head of the School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology.
Professor Yuan Chen
University of Sydney
Professor Yuan Chen is the Sydney Node leader of the SafeREnergy Hub. His research focuses on carbon materials and their sustainable energy and environmental applications, including supercapacitors, batteries, electrocatalysts, membranes, and antibacterial coatings. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. He is currently serving as an editor for Carbon (Elsevier) and Journal of Alloys and Compounds.
Professor Ian Gentle
Deputy Director & Node Leader (University of Queensland)
Professor Ian Gentle joined the University of Queensland in 1993 following postdoctoral positions at the Research School of Chemistry, ANU and the University of New England. During 2008-2010 he was seconded to the Australian Synchrotron, Clayton, Victoria as Head of Science, returning to UQ in 2011. In 2013 he was appointed Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science, whilst continuing to lead a group in SCMB. In 2015 he was appointed Deputy Executive Dean, Faculty of Science.His team are developing new materials for use as cathodes in high-energy rechargeable batteries, particularly lithium sulfur batteries, and supercapacitors. Materials developed so far show potential increases in energy density of 3-5x that of lithium ion batteries. In this work, funded by industry and State Government, they are working to continue increasing the capacity of Li-S batteries in a new purpose-built facility.
Associate Professor Wei Kong Pang
University of Wollongong
My research focuses on understanding and developing functional-graded materials, including the atomic-scale characterization of electrode materials, and the corresponding structure- and chemistry-function relations. The research centres around the uses of large-scale facilities (neutron/synchrotron scattering) and in-house (FTIR/Raman) spectroscopic microscopy, enabling the mechanistic studies by probing the changes in real-time, which underpins the properties and performance, of energy materials for metal-ion batteries.
Dr Bruce Lu
The University of Western Australia
Bruce Lu is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Western Australia (UWA), Australia. He spent more than two years as a Research Fellow in Singapore. Prior to that, he earned his PhD at Zhejiang University.
Chief Investigators
Professor David Cahill
Deakin University
Professor Cahill holds a Personal Chair in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University and was previously the Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment. He earned his PhD at The University of Melbourne and held post-doctoral positions in Canada and at the ANU prior to joining Deakin University. Professor Cahill is currently Deakin Scientific Director of the TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre, New Delhi. He is a member of the ARC College of Experts. Professor Cahill’s research focuses on the impacts of biotic and abiotic stress on plants and the use of bio- and nanotechnology to solve problems in agriculture.
Professor Christopher Cook
University of Wollongong
Professor Cook’s research interests are in industrial automation, robotics and power engineering and his experience spans industry, R&D, academia, and education and training. He has extensive experience in overcoming the technical, cultural and training barriers to the cost-effective implementation of advanced technologies in order to achieve world competitiveness for both SME’s and big business. He has also managed the development of skills pathways, curricula and pedagogy required to support the assimilation and practical use of advanced engineering for students at Schools, TAFE, Universities and via Continuous Professional Development after graduation.In his time at University of Wollongong he has been a Head of School, and then Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences (EIS) and its predecessors for 17 years with EIS disciplines at UOW now rating amongst the world’s best. He has been a CI in many ARC and other projects and had leadership roles in several Cooperative Research Centres including those in Advanced Manufacturing, Renewable Energy, Energy Pipelines, Rail Innovation and the National Defence Materials Technology Centre.
Associate Professor Wenrong Yang
Deakin University
Associate Professor Wenrong Yang obtained his PhD from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2002. He then worked at CSIRO as a postdoctoral fellow before returning to UNSW in 2005 as a Research Fellow. He was awarded a University of Sydney Research Fellowship in 2007, before joining Deakin University at the end of 2010. He currently leads the Nanochemistry and Biodevices Research Group in the School of Life and Environmental Science at Deakin, and is interested in nanostructured surface chemistry, nanomaterials chemistry, single-molecule electrochemistry, and biosensor technology.
Dr Srikanth Mateti
Deakin University
Srikanth Mateti received his PhD in 2018 from Deakin University and his Master of Technology degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, in 2011. He has been working as a Research Fellow in the Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM) at Deakin University since 2018.His research interests include in-situ synthesis and controlled doping of carbon and nitrogen into various nanomaterials, especially nanotubes (boron nitride, carbon) and nanosheets (graphene, boron nitride), using mechanochemistry (high-energy ball milling). He is also interested in developing new applications for these novel materials (thermal management, energy storage and catalysis).
Dr Chao Ye
University of Adelaide
Chao Ye received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Adelaide in 2020. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, working with Professor Shi-Zhang Qiao. His research focuses on developing novel electrode materials and studying electrochemical mechanisms in next-generation high energy density and low-cost energy storage systems such as metal-sulfur and aqueous batteries.
Dr Baozhi Yu
Deakin University
Dr. Yu has been researching advanced nanomaterials for high-performance energy storage devices since 2011. He mainly focuses on designing and synthesizing materials with reasonable nanostructures and components to achieve high-performance energy storage devices. He has developed many novel nanostructures such as hierarchical tube-on-tube nanostructures and porous core-shell nanostructures for different energy storage devices including supercapacitors, lithium-ion batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries and all-solid-state batteries.
Dr Min Hong
University of Southern Queensland
Dr Min Hong
University of Southern Queensland
Dr. Min Hong received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2016. After four-year postdoctoral research, he obtained a continuing lecturer position at University of Southern Queensland in 2021. His research field is thermoelectric materials and devices, including materials synthesis, thermoelectric performance evaluations, electron microscopy characterizations, density-functional theory calculations, and modeling simulations. His research has led to publications in high-impact journals, such as Joule, Energy & Environmental Science, Advanced Materials, etc. Moreover, he obtained the ARC DECRA fellowship and was involved in an ARC Discovery Project as a third CI.
Associate Professor Bin Luo
The University of Queensland
Associate Professor Bin Luo
The University of Queensland
Associate Processor Bin Luo is an ARC Future Fellow of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. Assoc. Prof. Luo received his PhD degree from National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013. Before joining UQ in 2014, he worked at NCNST as a research fellow for one year. Since joining UQ, he has worked as UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2014-2018), ARC DECRA Fellow (2018-2021), and ARC Future Fellow (2021-). Assoc. Prof. Luo's research focuses on the design of functional nanomaterials for next generation energy storage systems including metal-sulfur batteries, Aluminium batteries, redox flow batteries and solar rechargeable batteries. In the last 8 years, as a Chief Investigator, he has attracted a number of competitive research funds from ARC, UQ and industry. Assoc. Prof. Luo has contributed 4 edited book chapters, more than 120 journal publications, has filed 13 patents and delivered over 30 keynote/invited presentations. His research has attracted >9800 citations with an H-index of 49 (google scholar). He is serving as Editorial Board/Young Advisory Board member of international journals including EcoMat and Catalysts.
Professor Ashok Nanjundan
University of Southern Queensland
Ashok is a Professor of Energy Storage at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is a nanomaterial (carbon) and energy expert and a former Chief Scientific Officer at Graphene Manufacturing Group, a listed company in graphene production and applications. His research excellence has been recognised by prestigious fellowships, such as Marie-Curie, JSPS-Japan, and UQ Fellowship, and has attracted several million AUD in funding. His academic output includes over 100 published papers, and seven filed patents in the field of nanomaterials and energy. His works appeared in high-ranking journals, e.g., Chemical Review, ACS Nano, Advanced Energy Materials, Energy & Environmental Science, Nature Protocols and Chemical Communications etc. He mentors young researchers and students in his field to advance the frontiers of materials science and energy storage.
Professor Colin Barrow
Deakin University
Professor Colin Barrow is Chair of Biotechnology at Deakin University. He is also the Director of the Centre for Chemistry and Biotechnology (CCB). Previously he was Executive Vice President of Research and Development for Ocean Nutrition Canada (ONC) where he led the development of seafood-derived supplement and healthy food ingredients and technologies.Professor Barrow has a Ph.D. in marine natural products chemistry from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and an MBA from Penn State in the USA. Professor Barrow has approximately 130 peer-reviewed publications and several patents. His research interests include a broad spectrum of natural products chemistry, biological chemistry, food biotechnology and omega- 3 oil technology.His current research is primarily in two areas: Omega-3 biotechnology and amyloid fibres and nanomaterials. His current research group at Deakin University has 8 post-doctoral fellows and 14 PhD students and he collaborates with a variety of research groups in India, China, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada.
Professor Shizhang Qiao
University of Adelaide
Dr Qiao joined the School of Chemical Engineering of the University of Adelaide (UoA) in March 2012 as a professor (the inaugural Chair of Nanotechnology). He is the founding Director of Centre for Materials in Energy and Catalysis (CMEC). His research expertise is in nanomaterials for new energy technologies (electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, batteries, fuel cell). He has co-authored more than 442 papers in refereed journals, and has filed four patents on novel nanomaterials and attracted more than 13 million dollars in research grants from industrial partners and Australian Research Council (ARC).In recognition of his achievements in research, he was honoured with inaugural UoA Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research (2019), an Australian Star of Research (Lifetime Achievers Leaderboard, by "The Australian" 2019), prestigious ARC Australian Laureate Fellow (2017), ExxonMobil Award (2016), ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA, 2013), Emerging Researcher Award (2013, ENFL Division of the American Chemical Society) and UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award (2008). He has also been awarded an ARC ARF Fellowship, an ARC APD Fellowship and an inaugural UQ Mid-Career Research Fellowship.
A/Prof Duane Robinson
University of Wollongong
A/Prof Duane Robinson
University of Wollongong
Duane Robinson graduated from the University of Wollongong (UOW) with a BE in Electrical Engineering in 1998 after completing a 7 year cadetship with BHP Port Kembla Steelworks. He then joined the Integral Energy Power Quality Centre at UOW to complete his PhD degree in the area of harmonic distortion and related mitigation techniques. In 2002 he took up a position as research fellow at UOW working on power quality related projects and other consulting activities, and later as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. Duane temporarily departed UOW, working for a multidisciplinary consultancy primarily on LV and MV electrical distribution design, control, and protection projects for heavy industrial clients. In 2011 he returned to UOW to work with the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre and Australian Power Quality and Reliability Centre at UOW. Duane now works in the areas of power quality, energy storage, demand side management, renewable energy applications, microgrids and protection, and modelling and analysis of power systems.
Dr Xinan Zhang
The University of Western Australia
Dr. Xinan Zhang received the BEng degree in Electrical Engineering from Fudan University, China, in 2008. He received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2014. Then, he worked as a research fellow in NTU and the University of New South Wales (Australia) until 2017. From 2017 to 2019, he worked as a Lecturer in NTU.In September 2019, he joined the School of Engineering, University of Western Australia as a Senior Lecturer, where he is currently an Associate Professor. His research interests include power electronics, electrical machine drives and renewable energy. In recent years, he has published over 60 papers in top journals. Currently, he is the Portfolio Lead in Industry Engagement for School of Engineering and the co-lead of Power and Clean Energy (PACE) research group.Dr Xinan Zhang is listed in the Stanford University's list of the top 2% scientists in the world for years 2020 to 2022.
Partner Investigators
Christiaan Jordaan
Sicona Battery Technologies
Alan Ross
LDO Electric
Dr Stephen (Steve) Rowlands
Li-S Energy
Chief Technology Officer
Steve has over 20 years’ experience in the energy storage sector, including the last eight years as Deputy CTO at OXIS Energy, a pioneer of lithium-sulphur battery technology. At OXIS Energy, Steve managed the cathode, electrolyte, cell test engineering and production development teams. He has extensive knowledge of nanomaterials and their effect on the detailed mechanisms of lithium-sulphur technology. Managing the OXIS Energy production development team, he gained detailed knowledge of the scale-up processes required in delivering a pilot production line for lithium-sulphur battery manufacture.Steve has a First-Class BSc. (Hons) degree in Applied Chemistry and a PhD in Electrochemical Supercapacitors for Energy Storage.Andrew McVey
Shoalhaven Water
Water Operations and Maintenance Manager, Andrew has worked with Shoalhaven Water in various capacities for the last 21 years in engineering, operations and now senior management positions. The most testing times for any water utility is when critical services like power, communications or transport links are disrupted. Andrew has been at the helm of multiple such scenarios and thus brings first hand experience of the responses required and the level of resilience desired for effective risk mitigation. Andrew’s experience with emergency management through the drought, bushfires and floods will provide firsthand experience of these disaster scenarios for the project with University of Wollongong.
Sarry Bi
Panda Development Group
Panda Solar specialise in electrical engineering technology and electrical contracting of professional solar systems and farms.
Richard Li
Australia Wisdom Capital Group
Richard, an engineering-trained operator, is Co-founder of Australia Wisdom Capital Group (AWCG), a research-led investment and industry services platform.
Research & Technical Staff
Researchers & Research Engineers are appointed to assist Chief Investigators complete SafeREnergy research projects.
Dr Weidi Liu
The University of Queensland
Dr Weidi Liu
The University of Queensland
Wei-Di Liu is currently a Postdoc Research Fellow at Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, the University of Queensland, Australia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 2020. His research interest lies in advanced functional materials, and is specially focusing on the understanding and development of novel thermoelectric materials, devices and applications.
Professor Lianzhou Wang
University of Queensland
Lianzhou Wang is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow, Director of Nanomaterials Centre, and Senior Group Leader of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. Professor Wang received his PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Before joining UQ in 2004, he worked at two leading national research institutions (NIMS and AIST) of Japan as a research fellow for five years. Since joining UQ, he has worked as ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow (2006), Senior Lecturer (2007), Associate Professor (2010), Professor (2012-) and ARC Future Fellow (2012-16). Professor Wang's research focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and application of semiconductor nanomaterials for use in renewable energy conversion/storage systems including photocatalytsts for solar hydrogen and valuable chemical production, rechargeable batteries and low cost solar cells. In late 2018, his team has broken the certified efficiency world record of quantum dot solar cells. In the last 15 years' time, as a Chief Investigator, he has attracted a number of competitive research funds from ARC, CRC, CSIRO and industry. Prof. Wang has contributed 3 edited books, 14 edited book chapters, more than 450 journal publications, has filed 18 patents and delivered over 100 plenary/keynote/invited presentations. He is serving as Associate Editor/Editorial Boards of a number of international journals including Advanced Materials. He is a fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and was named in the list of the Clarivate’ Highly Cited Researchers (ESI Top 1% cited).
Higher Degree Research
HDR or PhD students work with Hub Chief Investigators completing theses on research aligned to an industry partner funded project.
Wangmo Wangmo
Wangmo Wangmo
Wangmo is a PhD student at the University of Southern Queensland. Prior to completing a Masters in Engineering Science, with a major in Power Engineering at USQ, in 2019 under the Australia Awards Scholarship program funded by DFAT, Wangmo worked for ten years in the energy sector of Bhutan which is predominantly hydro based. With the Australian power system being a diverse energy mix, and with the longest transmission networks in the world, Wangmo is excited to be undertaking research on Use of High Energy Density Supercapacitors (HEDs) for Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) and Network Support Control Ancillary Services (NSCAS)”. This research is being funded by ARC, University of Southern Queensland and industry partner, Zero Emission Developments (ZED)Wangmo is a member of the SafeREnergy Gender and Diversity Committee, a crucial platform in the endeavour of contributing towards safe energy for everyone.
Muhammad Waseem Fazal
Deakin University
Bowen Dai
Deakin University
Mengchi Wang
Deakin University
Strategic Advisory Committee
The Strategic Advisory Committee consists of a selection of national and international experts in the field, from both academia and industry. Its purpose is to provide independent advice on Hub direction, strategy, project focus and mix, potential funding opportunities, relationships, and partners.
Current members are:
Prof. Nick Birbilis
Deakin University
Deakin University, Office of the Executive Dean Science, Engineering and Built Environment
Prof. Neeraj Sharma
UNSW
- Solid state and Materials Chemistry
- Towards the next generation of batteries: Sodium-ion & Potassium-ion batteries
- Developing better lithium-ion batteries
- Tuning negative thermal expansion to produce zero thermal expansion materials
- In situ studies of materials
- Development of new ionic conductors
- Structural investigations using neutron and X-ray scattering
Prof. Hongxia Wang
QUT
Professor Hongxia Wang is a leading researcher in the area of advanced solar cells and energy storage technologies. in the past 20 years, her research has been focused on development of cost-effective optoelectrical devices (solar cells, light emitting diodes, photodetectors), supercapacitors, batteries, solar fuels as well as related integrated devices for variable environmental conditions both on earth and in outer space through innovative materials design and synthesis, device architecture design as well as in-depth understanding of the fundamental mechanism of the materials in devices.
Prof. Ajayan Vinu
The University of Newcastle
Prof. Vinu is currently working as a Laureate Professor of Nanomaterials and Director of the Global Innovative Center for Advanced Nanomaterials at the University of Newcastle. Prior to this, Prof. Vinu was also working as a Full Professor of Nanomaterials at the Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, Australia from 2015 to 2017. His previous employment was as a Full Professor and ARC Future Fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, during September 2011-2015. Before moving to Australia, he had been working as a senior researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan, since 2006 after he had successfully completed two years of the ICYS fellowship at the same institute and a few years of research at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (TUK), Germany. Although Prof. Vinu registered his PhD at Anna University, he performed most of his PhD work at the TUK (2000-2003).
Paula Treacy
Fire Rescue Victoria
Commander - Dangerous Goods Unit Fire Rescue Victoria
Mark Winfield
BNNT
Mark Winfield
BNNT
Mark is a globally recognised leader with over 40 years of experience in commercialising innovation and technology. He has developed award-winning solutions across diverse industries including food aid, tourism, housin, and sustainable development. Mark is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Prof. Jodie Bradby
Australian National University
Jodie Bradby is a professor at the Research School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University where she leads a group on high pressure physics.She is the current President of the Australian Institute of Physics.
Prof. Karen Hussey
Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee
Professor Karen Hussey is Chair of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee.Previously, Professor Hussey was Deputy Director-General of the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, and was the inaugural Director of UQ's Centre for Policy Futures. Professor Hussey has undertaken research and consultancies in the areas of water policy, climate mitigation and adaptation policy, coastal and reef governance, energy policy, natural disasters, the climate-energy-water nexus, and the links between international trade and environmental outcomes (especially in relation to agricultural trade).
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