Early-career researcher awards to strengthen Australia’s research capability

Twenty-one early-career University of Melbourne researchers have received $10.8 million from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to further projects aligned with Australia’s future innovation and the University’s impact accelerators.

The projects, which received ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs), range from assessing the capacity of Australia’s disaster policy to addressing the inequalities faced by women with psychosocial disability.

University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Mark Cassidy said the awards enable early-career researchers to work on innovative projects for real-world impact.

“Our researchers are working to address the challenges we are facing as a global society, from climate sustainability and future health to democracy and social inclusion,” Professor Cassidy said.

“These projects will advance knowledge across domains including fundamental biology, climate science, creative practice, energy storage technologies and public health to deliver positive impact.”

Congratulations to our researchers:

Dr Sabina Andron aims to explore urban visual governance to develop more balanced strategies between regulation and creative expression.
Dr Sarah Austin aims to create inclusive spaces for marginalised children and young people to exercise creative agency and leadership in the arts.
Dr Alireza Chiniforush aims to develop AI-driven physics-informed Finite Element Methods to enhance the analysis of timber structures.
Dr Shaanan Cohney aims to develop privacy-preserving technologies to protect young people online while upholding security and individual rights.
Dr Linpeng Fan aims to unlock cardiac insights using a materials-based approach to modelling the heart’s left ventricle.
Dr Hannah Gould aims to investigate Australia's impending ‘Peak Death’ era, studying dying preferences and deathcare sector readiness.
Dr Hayley Jach aims to assess positive and negative effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on curiosity-driven learning.
Dr Claire Leppold aims to identify the capacity of Australia’s current and future disaster policy to address the needs of people who live through multiple climate disasters.
Dr Hayley Macpherson aims to measure local distortions in space from nearby clumps of matter using exciting new observations and simulations.
Dr Seraphine Maerz aims to investigate the relationship between illiberal public discourse and democratic decline by analysing political speeches from 21 democracies including Australia.
Dr Claire Miller’s interdisciplinary project aims to develop novel mathematical models to unify understanding of how key components of the menstrual cycle interact to regulate healthy function.
Dr Pooranee Morgan aims to improve the survival and function of T cells by fine-tuning the conditions in which they grow.
Dr Zebedee Nicholls aims to develop a computationally efficient climate model emulator suitable for net-zero and net-negative emission scenarios.
Dr Tongrui Qian aims to understand how serotonin in the brain affects sensory learning.
Dr Robert Turnbull aims toaddress the knowledge gap of Arabic translations of the Gospels using the recently discovered Sinai New finds.
Dr Ekaterina Vylomova aims to develop a computational framework to explore and document under-resourced languages.
Dr Robert Walton aims to investigate whether AI and robots can perform believable comedy, addressing a gap in our understanding of human-robot interaction.
Dr Peiyao Wang aims to investigate how electrode porous structures impact ion transport under fast operations to improve battery performance.
Dr Kristoffer Wild aims to transform our understanding of population responses in hypervariable environments under climate change scenarios.
Dr Yi Yang aims to address the gender inequalities faced by women with psychosocial disability.
Dr Weichang Yu aims to develop next-generation adaptive intervention methods for tackling complex real-world data challenges by leveraging modern Bayesian techniques.

The ARC has awarded $102.8 million nation-wide to support 200 new DECRA projects to strengthen Australia’s research capability and global competitiveness.