UTS researchers win $14 million for future fellows

UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Kate McGrath welcomed the announcement.

“This is a strong result, reflecting the quality and depth of our research, and the contribution our dedicated researchers are making to addressing complex societal challenges to benefit us all,” she said.

“UTS was the 9th best performing university in the number of successful grants in this round, with more than a quarter of our submitted projects being funded.” 

The Australian Research Council supports mid-career researchers with Future Fellowships each year to undertake high-quality research in areas of national and global benefit. 

The 12 UTS Future Fellows and their funded research projects are: 

Professor Penny Crofts (Faculty of Law) - $1.33 million 
Death by corporation: Criminal law, culture and homicidal corporations 
By employing a transdisciplinary approach, this project will critically analyse legal and cultural conceptualisations of corporate killings to address the obstacles preventing the criminal liability of corporations. It will argue corporations can and should be prosecuted for homicide, leading to significant legal, economic and social benefits by prohibiting and deterring corporate homicides specifically and corporate harms more broadly. 

Dr Xuzhen He (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1.17 million 
Accelerated multiscale modelling with physics–data informed upscaling
The project reveals the mechanism driving the upward migration of water and fine particles in soils under oscillatory deformation—a long-standing problem causing cargo liquefaction in ships and mud-pumping hazards in railways. It is expected to develop a multiscale, multi-physics framework that links fine-scale processes to large-scale predictions with high accuracy and quantified uncertainty. 

Associate Professor Peter Irga (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1.14 million 
Towards building scale phytosystem biofiltration for cleaner indoor air 
This project will develop, evaluate and apply biotechnology-driven phytosystem biofilters for building-scale air purification. It will determine whether they can wholly or partly replace mechanical ventilation to provide economical, high-quality indoor environmental management; establish the air handling capacity required per unit indoor volume; and assess the energy reduction potential of HVAC-integrated or retrofittable phytosystems. 

Dr Thinh Le (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1 million 
The periodic table of quantum correlations and applications 
This project aims to develop the periodic table for quantum correlations and its applications in quantum computation and quantum communication by employing techniques from algebraic geometry and nonlinear optimisation. This should provide significant cost-reducing benefits to the design and implementation of quantum technologies, and a comprehensive battery of tests to assist the discovery and development of further theories of nature beyond quantum theory. 

Associate Professor Gungun Lin (Faculty of Science) - $1.17 million 
Surface-empowered micro-magneto-fluidics 
The project aims to develop a technology that enables the efficient manipulation of microparticles within complex fluids encountered in environmental water treatment, analytical testing and biological screening applications. By exploiting tailored surface topographies and interfacial fluid dynamics, the project will generate new knowledge of surface-mediated particle transport and establish innovative manipulation strategies and prototype devices for high-throughput, scalable particle and fluid processing. 

Associate Professor Guodong Long (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1.33 million 
Building the foundations of federated agentic AI 
This project will develop a new framework that enables various intelligent systems to work together safely, efficiently and responsibly. It will create a framework that enables many user-governed AI agents to collaborate, learn from one other, and adapt to human needs while ensuring data privacy, security, and autonomy.  

Associate Professor Alecia Simmonds (Faculty of Law) - $1.3 million 
The ties that bind: A legal history of the Australian family across time 
The family and the law are two of our most important social institutions, yet we have no history of how their relationship has evolved across time in Australia. This project fills this gap by providing the first legal history of the Australian family from the colonial period to the present, bringing innovative, interdisciplinary methods in law, history and biography to bear upon the question of how the family has been shaped by law as well as subjectively experienced. 

Associate Professor Yam Siwakoti (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1.33 million 
A unified framework for next-generation high density power converters 
This project aims to develop a multi-physics framework for next-generation power converters by combining circuit architectures, magnetics, thermal pathways, packaging  and control in one co-design flow. This will enable compact, efficient, reliable converters for energy, transport, aerospace and digital infrastructure while enhancing Australia’s leadership in clean energy technologies. 

Dr Wei Wei (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1.17 million 
Revolutionising sewage sludge treatment via high-value products generation 
This project aims to develop a transformative sewage sludge treatment technology that reduces sludge volume and produces high-value liquid biofuels instead of conventional methane. These biofuels are easy to collect, store and transport, while eliminating greenhouse gas emission. It expects to shift sludge treatment from a carbon-intensive and costly process to a low-carbon, cost-saving one. 

Dr Limei Yang (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $1 million 
Atomic-scale insights for next-generation hydrogen storage materials 
This project aims to elucidate the three-dimensional nanostructural characteristics that govern the performance of hydrogen storage materials. By achieving this, the project will generate fundamental knowledge to guide catalyst selection and the design of next-generation hydrogen storage materials. 

Dr Jianjun Zhang (Faculty of Engineering and IT) - $993,000 
Smart origami: New strategy for energy absorption and structural protection 
By integrating origami with stimuli-responsive materials, this project aims to develop transformative, sustainable smart origami for reusable energy absorption and structural protection, with focus on the fundamental mechanics and mechanisms across multi-regime impact velocities. This should provide significant benefits to invention of reusable protection systems for sustainability and safety of space and land vehicles against collisions. 

Dr Jinqiang Zhang (Faculty of Science) - $1.01 million 
Next-generation lithium-CO2 batteries: From greenhouse gas to clean energy 
Lithium-CO2 (Li-CO2) batteries represent a transformative technology capable of directly converting greenhouse gases into clean electricity with high energy densities, offering a promising pathway toward carbon neutrality. This project aims to develop new functional composite solid-state electrolytes with gradient structures, to produce stable, efficient, and durable Li-CO2 batteries, using industrial flue gas as feedstock.