Achievements and awards

Professor Suresh Palanisamy, Director of Swinburne's Manufacturing Futures Research Platform, and his team of post-doc researchers Dr Novana Hutasoit and Dr Rizwan Abdul Rahman Rashid have been awarded the latest Manufacturing Letters Best Paper Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

The award-winning paper, titled Sars-CoV-2 (COVID-19) inactivation capability of copper-coated touch surface fabricated by cold-spray technology, platforms innovative research into using copper-coated surfaces to combat COVID-19. The research exemplifies the practical application of advanced manufacturing techniques in addressing global health challenges, and was carried out in collaboration with industry partners SPEE3D and 360BioLabs Pty Ltd.

The Best Paper Award was presented at the North American Manufacturing Research Institution (NAMRI) SME awards luncheon in Knoxville, US. It recognises the researchers’ significant contributions to the field of manufacturing engineering and reinforces Swinburne’s position at the forefront of scientific and technological innovation.

Dr Jenny Crosbie, Principal Industry Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne University (CSI Swinburne), has been inducted into Disability Employment Australia's Hall of Fame.

This prestigious honour recognises Dr Crosbie's enduring commitment to advancing disability employment in Australia over the past 35 years.

Throughout her career, Dr Crosbie has significantly contributed to enhancing inclusion for people with disabilities. She managed two disability employment organisations early in her career and served as the first Executive Officer of DEA in the early 2000s. Recently, her research has focused on addressing barriers to economic participation for young people with intellectual disabilities, aiming to improve service systems and promote inclusion in employment.

Dr Crosbie's PhD research offers new insights into economic participation for young people with intellectual disabilities, identifying factors that support their inclusion in community-based roles. Her dedication has led to significant advancements in this field. 

Professor Erin Wilson, Director of CSI Swinburne, commended Dr Crosbie's contributions.

"Dr Crosbie's work has been instrumental in reshaping how we understand economic participation for young people with intellectual disabilities,” she said.

Dr Crosbie expressed her gratitude for the recognition and emphasised her ongoing commitment to creating opportunities for people with disabilities.

Swinburne University of Technology has won University of the Year and Swinburne astrophysicist Dr Sara Webb has won Rising Star of the Year – Enterprise at the 2024 Australian Space Awards.

The success reaffirms Swinburne’s global reputation as a groundbreaking leader in space and aerospace, with our physics subjects ranking in the Top 200 globally, and our campuses home to world-leading endeavours like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) and the Ngarrgu Tindebeek supercomputer.

Swinburne’s talented academics were nominated as finalists in six categories at this year’s Australian Space Awards, reflecting expertise across astronomy and astrophysics, space technology, engineering and instrumentation, and satellite data analysis.

Other Swinburne individual finalists in this year’s awards included Dr Rebecca Allen, co-director of our Space Technology and Industry Institute, who was nominated for Female Space Leader of the Year – Enterprise, and PhD candidate Thomas Graham, whose research is investigating responsible AI in space, who was also nominated for Rising Star of the Year – Enterprise. 

In the awards’ group categories, Swinburne's Youth Space Innovation Challenge program was a finalist for Outstanding STEAM Outreach and Diversity Initiative Program of the Year. The program is led by Dr Sara Webb and is currently accepting registrations for its July 2024 intake.

Swinburne-founded startup Fourier Space was also a finalist in the Startup of the Year category. Fourier Space translates techniques from radio astronomy to solve digital signal processing challenges for the space and satellite communication sectors. Swinburne's Chief Scientist, Professor Virginia Kilborn, is a company director and Shaw prize-winner and OzGrav director, Professor Matthew Bailes, is a co-founder, director and chair.

Swinburne nanophotronics expert, Professor David Moss, has received an Honorary Doctorate from the Danish Technical University (DTU) in Copenhagen. The award was presented at the annual DTU commemoration ceremony this year with King Frederik X of Denmark in attendance. 

Professor Moss has been commended for leading extensive international research networks in nanophotonics and has over 520 publications including numerous articles in Nature family journals. He has previously won several notable awards for his research including the 2011 Australian Museum Award and the Google Eureka Science Prize for Innovation. 

“I’m deeply honoured by this award, particularly coming from DTU in Copenhagen, arguably the founding city of modern physics. I’ve been collaborating with colleagues from the DTU for 30 years and look forward to continuing to work with them for many years to come.” Professor Moss said. 

With an extensive career spanning 33 years of research in academia, industry and government research laboratories, Professor Moss is a demonstrated leader in his field. This award served as a testament to his longstanding collaboration with DTU and his career achievements.  

Swinburne Associate Professor Andreea Molnar is among 50 female researchers and scientists recognised by Cosmos for her dedication and contribution to Australian science.  

In honour of International Women’s Day 2024 and with the support of Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) and Australia’s five Learned Academies, Cosmos showcased the achievements of these amazing female researchers and scientists on their website.

Associate Professor Molnar’s research aims to develop computing for social good and incorporates elements from information systems, human computer interaction and educational games. It has applications in health, education and governmental services.  

This follows her appointment as a Fellow of the International Science Council last year, further cementing her as a leader in her field.

Swinburne's Aerostructures Innovation Research (AIR) Hub has won the Zero Carbon Hydrogen Australia and Smart Energy Council’s Hydrogen Innovation Challenge. 

AIR Hub’s winning submission was the Small Hydrogen Aircraft Evolution and Development (SHADE) project, in which the team designed, developed and flight-tested Australia’s first hydrogen fuel cell powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) uncrewed aircraft system (UAS). Judges commended the AIR Hub team on their innovative approach and dedication to advancing sustainable energy solutions.  

AIR Hub Director, Dr Adriano Di Pietro, said the win is testimony to Swinburne University’s commitment to contributing to the global renewable energy transition. 

“The entire AIR Hub team is dedicated to furthering innovation in aerospace and aviation and to building a greener sector for future generations. It’s an honour to have this work recognised by the Smart Energy Council,” says Dr Di Pietro. 

“I’d like to extend a heartfelt congratulations to all members of the SHADE team for the hard work and expertise you have brought towards this project. Together we are building towards a more sustainable future.” 

The Hydrogen Innovation Challenge aims to showcase groundbreaking innovation in the renewable hydrogen sector. Entrants were judged on how their submission demonstrated excellence in innovation, feasibility and its potential to foster growth in Australia's nascent green hydrogen sector. 

Director, Indigenous Engagement, Vicky Peters has been awarded the Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship.

Now in its second year running, the Scholarship offers a springboard to better prepare leaders for board opportunities as they arise. 

Peters says she is profoundly grateful to receive the scholarship and is excited by how it will elevate her leadership.

"As a proud Aboriginal woman, being awarded this scholarship is not just a personal triumph but represents a significant stride towards advancing the interests of my community at decision making levels. This opportunity not only bridges the financial gap that often hinders individuals like me, but also serves as a powerful platform for me to continue advocating for better outcomes and opportunities within my community.” Peters said. 

“This scholarship represents positive change and I am committed to making the most of this opportunity."

Founder of the scholarship, Jo Fisher believes there is a critical opportunity for Australian organisations to embrace diversity.  

“My hope is that the annual Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship encourages different and unique board talent to come forward. And that each year an outstanding individual, who may not have otherwise had the chance, is elevated by this program. The quality of applications over the years has been outstanding.

“I look forward to seeing these beneficiaries make a truly positive contribution to the boards and organisations they join in the future," Fisher said.

Swinburne School of Engineering’s Dr Nisa Salim and PhD student Vishnu Pillai have showcased their GraphIT project at Prototypes for Humanity in Dubai. Selected from 3,000 applications in over 100 countries and being invited to attend COP28, they are presenting their research on creating graphene sensors for real-time structural health monitoring.

GraphIT addresses challenges in detecting damage, especially in hard-to-reach locations like wind turbines, and utilises graphene’s remarkable properties to be cost effective and efficient to maintain.

These graphene sensors will be able to help avert catastrophic failures, such as bridge collapses, safeguarding both property and lives. The technology has potential applications spanning aerospace, defence and automotive industries.

Swinburne’s Dr Nishar Hameed and Dr Premika Govindaraj were also involved in this innovative project, pioneering a new era in infrastructure safety and sustainability.

The project highlights the significance of research into graphene, including an Australian Research Council project between Swinburne and Sparc Technologies, led by Dr Salim. This project on smart coatings has the potential to revolutionise industries including aerospace, infrastructure, space exploration and renewable energy.

Professor Tsong Yueh Chen has won the 2024 ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) Outstanding Research Award for his contributions to software engineering through the invention of metamorphic testing. This is a leading award in the software engineering community globally. 

Professor Chen’s more than 20 years at Swinburne have inspired hundreds of follow-up metamorphic testing studies by other researchers. This legacy has seen metamorphic testing evolve beyond software testing to program proving, debugging and other software engineering applications.

Metamorphic testing was endorsed as a standard testing technique by ISO/IEC/IEEE in 2021, the only technique added into industry standards in the past twenty years.

In addition to the invention of metamorphic testing, Professor Chen has delivered significant results in software testing, partition testing, failure-based testing and adaptive random testing.

PhD students flex their BICEP into ELO2 Big Dipper Challenge final

22 Jan 2024

A team of three Swinburne PhD students, featuring Daniel Ricardo, Belinda Rich and Philipp Zanon, has been chosen as one of three first place entries for the ELO2 Big Dipper Challenge. The Challenge invited Australians to design a sample acquisition device to collect lunar soil, known as regolith, for the newly-announced Australian Roo-ver mission.

The team’s design, a Biomechanically Inspired Excavator (BICEP), represents a fresh approach to lunar excavation and is inspired by the human arm. 

The mechanism features a series of pulleys and a cup-shaped mechanism for dust tolerant sample collection and can perform multiple functions, including cutting and bulldozing. Designed specifically for use on small lightweight rovers, BICEP weighs less than 600g and draws just 4 Watts to operate low excavation forces.

The team is now busy developing a final design and set of guidelines ahead of participating in the final round of the Big Dipper Challenge.

A researcher from Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Professor Ryan Shannon, has been jointly awarded the high-regarded 2024 Jackson-Gwilt Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society. Professor Shannon was awarded alongside CSIRO’s Dr Keith Bannister for turning an Australia telescope into a fast radio burst discovery machine.

Fast radio bursts are intense brief flashes or radio waves that last only a fraction of second.  Their fleeting nature made them challenging to find.

Working on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio interferometer, Professor Shannon and Dr Bannister co-developed a supercomputing-based detection system to maximise the observed field-of-view.

After deploying the new system, the first fast radio burst was found in less than five days, and in the next year they collected a sample of 20, nearly doubling the previous decade’s haul. Since being discovered in 2007, fewer than 20 fast radio bursts had been found and confirmed to reside in other galaxies. 

“We are continuing to develop new fast radio burst search systems for ASKAP which will allow us to better understand these unusual signals and harness them to answer other foundational questions about nature of the Universe,” says Professor Shannon.