Early career researchers at UNSW awarded $7.6m in funding

The funding allows researchers to progress their projects and careers that will benefit Australians.

UNSW Sydney has secured $7.6 million in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Awards (DECRA) round for 2023. 

The ARC is supporting 200 new early career research projects with $85 million in funding for this 2023 round. Eighteen of the 200 projects have been awarded to early career researchers at UNSW.  

ARC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ms Judi Zielke PSM, welcomed the decision by Jason Clare, Minister for Education, to award $85 million for the projects under the DECRA scheme. 

Ms Zielke said researchers benefit from the opportunity provided by the funding to research and train in high-quality, supportive environments. 

“The DECRA scheme allows researchers in the early stages of their career to develop and apply their research skills, on projects that benefit Australians,” Ms Zielke said.  

“The projects also give these researchers the opportunity to collaborate and build connections that will help them progress through a career in research.” 

UNSW Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sven Rogge said he was extremely proud of UNSW’s promising early career researchers and looks forward to seeing them develop into future academic leaders.

“Congratulations to all our early career researchers who have received the 2023 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA). This round of funding reflects the high quality of our early career researchers across UNSW. Of note is the strong representation from UNSW Engineering this year, with projects including designing single-atom catalysts for renewable waste conversion to urea and creating solutions for fire hazards caused by static electricity in hazardous industrial areas,” Prof. Rogge said. 

Dr Long Hu, UNSW Science, has received $452,154 for his project: Printed Infrared Quantum Dot Photodetectors and Large-scale Image Sensors. 

Dr Dorna Esrafilzadeh, UNSW Engineering, has received $434,395 for her project: Re-engineering metallic-based nanostructures for carbon dioxide conversion.  

Dr Dong Gong, UNSW Engineering, has received $419,154 for his project: Towards Real-world Continual Learning on Unrestricted Task Steams.  

Dr Rahman Daiyan, UNSW Engineering, has received $360,218 for his project: Designing Single-atom catalysts for Renewable Waste Conversion to Urea.  

Dr Deepak Mishra, UNSW Engineering, has received $426,118 for his project: Intelligent Physical Layer Security Protocols for Backscattering in IoT.  

Dr Ali Ahrari, UNSW Canberra, has received $329,278 for his project: An Efficient Computational Solver for Complex Engineering Problems.  

Dr Emma Catherine Lovell, UNSW Engineering, has received $397,613 for her project: Photo-thermal ammonia decomposition. 

Dr Alexander Mason, UNSW Science, has received $433,654 for his project: Building a synthetic chemical synapse through harnessed stochasticity.  

Associate Professor Kari Lancaster, UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture, has received $459,094 for her project: Outbreak science: a social study of wastewater evidence, viruses and drugs.  

Dr Mengran Li, UNSW Science, has received $428,154 for his project: An integrated electrolyser for CO2 conversion from capture media. 

Dr Michael Nielsen, UNSW Engineering, has received $449,154 for his project: Charge and Energy Transfer Processes at Inorganic-Organic Interfaces. 

Dr Nicola Maher, UNSW Science, has received $450,042 for her project: How will Pacific climate variability impact Australia in a warming world?  

Dr Scott Berry, UNSW Medicine & Health, has received $463,618 for his project: Coordinating gene expression and cell size: the role of feedback regulation.  

Dr Wei Wang, UNSW Engineering, has received $436,554 for his project: Multifunctional Biomass Coatings for Electrostatic Induced Fire Hazards.  

Dr Hasindu Gamaarachchi, UNSW Engineering, has received $453,913 for his project: Fast, lightweight and live nanopore sequencing analysis.  

Dr Meng Zhang, UNSW Engineering, has received $426,780.00 for his project: Overcoming the Intrinsic Instability of Perovskites Materials and Devices.  

Dr Nour Moustafa, UNSW Canberra, has received $419,218 for his project: Vulnerability Defence: From Interpretable to Trustworthy Threat Assessment.  

Dr Kaiwen Sun, UNSW Engineering, has received $440,154 for his project: Kesterite/Si Tandem Structure for Unassisted Overall Solar Fuel Production.