Success for Deakin in latest round of ARC Discovery, DECRA and LIEF grants

Deakin University has had some excellent results in the ARC scheme outcomes announced today.  

The University was awarded a total of $5,564,524 for 10 ARC Discovery Project awards, four ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA), and two ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) awards.

Deakin's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Lee Astheimer, said that she was delighted for the successful researchers.

"I congratulate all of the recipients on this recognition," Professor Astheimer said.

"It is the culmination of much effort and collaboration, and is a deserved acknowledgement of their research expertise."

The Deakin-led Discovery Projects:

• Professor Rohan Bastin, School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
  A collaborative research project between Australia and Sri Lanka that will involve undertaking a comparative study of religion in post-war Sri Lanka.
• Professor Ian Chen, Institute for Frontier Materials.
  This cutting-edge nanotechnology research will contribute to new adsorption materials for removing pollutants from contaminated water and clean-up of oil spillage.
• Professor John Endler, School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
  Professor Endler will explore the evolutionary effects of environmental change on gene regulation, with a focus on understanding how light environments affect survival.
• Dr Linda Hobbs, School of Education. Team includes Professor Russell Tytler, Associate Professor Colleen Vale and Dr Coral Campbell.
  Aiming to improve Australia's performance in STEM teaching, this project will inform the development of new support structures for the many out-of-field maths and science teachers.
• Professor Peter Hodgson, Institute for Frontier Materials. Team includes Dr Liana Timokhina.
  This project will support the development of a new cluster/nano-particle hardening mechanism to obtain high strength steel – supporting the global automotive industry.
• Associate Professor Peter Miller, School of Psychology.
  Professor Miller will investigate the introduction of risk-based licensing schemes for the sale of alcohol, helping to reduce alcohol-related injury and violence.
• Associate Professor Dinh Phung, Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics. Team includes Professor Svetha Venkatesh.
  Researchers will target the computational problems of analysing data from wearable medical devices and explore the potential of machine learning in this field.
• Professor Guang Shi, School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
  Aiming to understand the effects of global warming, this study will use the marine fossil record from the Permian-Triassic mass extinction (around 252 million years ago) to investigate how marine communities responded to this scenario.
• Dr Hongxia Wang, Institute for Frontier Materials. Team includes Dr Yan Zhao.
  This research will develop new knowledge on creating durable, self-cleaning surfaces through super-liquid-repellent materials, for use in a wide range of applications.
• Professor Yang Xiang, School of Information Technology.
  This project aims to develop a set of novel techniques for Internet traffic classification, to protect Australia's critical infrastructure against serious cyber-attacks.

The four ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) recipients are:

• Dr Severine Lamon, from the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, "Understanding the role of miRNAs in the biology of ageing muscle."
• Dr Dan Liu, from the Institute for Frontier Materials, "Novel Three Dimensional Porous Boron Nitride Foam for Water Cleaning."
• Dr Lee Rollins, from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, "Genetic and epigenetic drivers of the Australian cane toad invasion."
• Dr Filip Slaveski, from the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, "The Chaotic Transition from War to Peace in Soviet-Occupied Europe, 1945-53."

The two ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) award recipients are:

• Professor Saeid Nahavandi, from the Centre for Intelligent Systems Research, who has been awarded funds for "A haptic-based immersive motion platform for human performance evaluation."
• Dr Nicole Stanford from the Institute for Frontier Materials, who will receive funding for a "Quench and deformation dilatometer for studying phase transformations."