Distinguished Professor Karu Esselle and Dr Jiayan Liao were awarded at the NSW Premier’s Prizes for Science and Engineering.
Dr Jiayan Liao (centre left) and Professor Karu Esselle (centre right) with Professor Kate McGrath (UTS DVC Research) and Professor Michael Blumenstein (UTS PVC).
The NSW Premier’s Prizes for Science and Engineering recognise excellence and reward leading researchers for cutting-edge work that has generated economic, environmental, health, social or technological benefits for New South Wales.
University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Distinguished Professor Karu Esselle and Dr Jiayan Liao were awarded for their cutting-edge research in science and engineering.
Leadership in Innovation
Distinguished Professor Karu Esselle is an expert in nanotechnology, specialising in developing next-generation bioanalytical and imaging tools, as well as advanced detection techniques. Professor Esselle is a leader in electromagnetic, antenna and radio frequency engineering and is at the forefront of developing innovative antenna technologies for a wide range of applications.
Among his many research innovations, Distinguished Professor Karu Esselle has made significant contributions to satellite communication technology, aiming to close the divide between rural and regional NSW. Professor Esselle was awarded the 2024 Leadership in Innovation Premier's Prize.
Over many years, I have been helping Australian engineers and companies to be global leaders in developing antenna technologies that are designed, developed and hopefully manufactured in Australia.
Distinguished Professor Karu Esselle.
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Professor in electromagnetic and antenna
engineering at the University of Technology
Sydney. My area of specialty is
electromagnetic and antenna engineering
that is developing radio frequency
circuits for telecomunication systems
sensor systems and other electronic
systems. We are aiming to solve certain
global challenges and national
challenges. So we are developing radio
frequency technologies, advanced antenna
systems to address these challenges and
to find solutions. The challenge is to
reduce the power consumption in most of
the electronic systems. So we are leading
our research towards that direction to
make them low cost and consume less
power. The methods I invented in major
companies to develop new satellite
communication Terminals and other
electronic equipment. My aim is to resolve
the remaining challenges in
telecommunications. We are developing
technologies to increase the data
rates and throughput for communications
and for sensing we are aiming to improve
the capability of sensing from space for
Australia and other countries. My
colleagues have been extremely
supportive and important for all these
achievements and I want to thank all of
them as always. There's no such thing as
individual prize, I consider this as a
group prize for my group my team it's a
it's a great privilege to be recognised
by the state of New South Wales our
research contributions my contributions
and my team's contributions this way.
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Early Career Researcher of the Year (Physical Sciences)
Materials and biomedical scientist Dr Jiayan Liao was awarded the NSW Premier’s Prize for Early Career Researcher of the Year (Physical Sciences) for her exploration of fundamental photophysical phenomena and the development of next-generation bioanalytical tools.
“By developing advanced nanophotonic and imaging technologies, we aim to understand the photophysical processes occurring in the nanoscale world and uncover the underlying mechanisms. Through the development and application of these nanoprobes, we strive to address some of the significant health challenges, particularly by enhancing the accuracy and accessibility of disease diagnostics with cutting-edge nanotechnology,” Dr Liao explains.
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My name is Jiayan Liao I'm a Chancellor's
Research Fellow and a NHMRC EL1 Fellow
at the faculty of science at the
University of Technology Sydney. My
expertise is in Material Science Optical
physics and nanotechnology with
particularly focus on developing
Advanced nanop photonic and image
Technologies my work is PR us both the
fun mental photo physical phenomena and
the magm behind them we're also aiming
to create Next Generation by analytical
tues these tools are designed to
diagnose disease at a molecule level
using nanoscopic probe to detect the
disease in their early stages my primary
goal is to understand the photo physical
processing occurring in the nanoscale
world and uncover the underlying
mechanisms by dering and applying this
Nano probe I hope to adjust some of the
most significant health challenges so
far our work has led to several
breakthroughs including advancments in
novel Material Science and nanop
photonics we have conducted studies on
the photophysical properties and
principles of these materials applying
them in a wide range of areas particular
in image and analytical immunes looking
forward my goal is to expand our
research application to cover a wide
range of disease and to further refund
the technology for even faster and more
accurate results I couldn't achieve the
results without the support and help
from my colleages and students at UTS
winning this prize is a incredible honor
it's refres the sportive event at UTS
and it recognize the hard work and
dedication of our team.