Grants & Opportunities

Ethics, evidence, and expert disagreement in public health emergencies. Public health responses to pandemics have major consequences beyond the diseases themselves. Ethical responses must balance the benefits of controlling epidemics with causing social and economic harms to society. This project aims to understand how expert disagreement over evidence contributes to contentious emergency public health responses. Expected outcomes include new evidence-based methods for ethical evaluation of public health responses that may reduce harms, along with guidance on how public health ethics frameworks should be used when experts disagree. The project hopes to provide social and economic benefits to Australia by helping health policy makers ethically balance the benefits and harms of pandemic responses.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5001 - Applied Ethics. Lead: A/Prof Euzebiusz Jamrozik

Better environmental decisions amid strategic and evolutionary feedbacks. This project’s main aim is to revolutionize conservation policymaking. By understanding eco-evolutionary feedbacks and strategic interactions among multiple stakeholders, results from this research will uncover strategies to effectively pursue biodiversity conservation. The ultimate goal of this DECRA is to understand how to anticipate and respond to complex evolving system dynamics, identify efficient mitigation strategies, and inform the multi-layered management of invasive species in Queensland. The resulting unified mathematical framework will help to identify key indicators in the system's behaviour, construct decision-support tools, and offer insights on the structure of viable actions available to the policymaker.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4901 - Applied Mathematics. Lead: Dr Maria Kleshnina

How does RNA regulate gene repression? RNA is known to have diverse roles in many areas of biology. Currently, however, the mechanisms that link RNA to gene repression are poorly understood. This project aims to address this fundamental knowledge gap by studying how RNA regulates genomic structure at repressed genes. This project will generate new knowledge in the areas of RNA biology and epigenetics through an interdisciplinary approach to combine cutting edge genomics methods with innovative structural biology techniques. Expected outcomes include the development of new methods to study nuclear RNA as well as a more comprehensive picture of the diverse mechanisms governing gene repression. This will significantly benefit our understanding of basic RNA and chromatin biology.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3105 - Genetics. Lead: Dr Evan Healy

Characterising extracellular contractile injection systems in human gut . Bacteria and archaea have a growing arsenal of characterised mechanisms they can deploy to compete with or control other organisms in the same environment. The goal of this DECRA will be to characterise a recently uncovered mechanism, where bacteria produce toxin filled ‘missiles’ that can be used to kill or modulate their competitors or host. Molecular and visualisation-based techniques will be applied to uncover the diversity, mechanisms, and targets of these novel microbial weapons in a model ecosystem, the human gut microbiome. This fundamental knowledge will be important for the development of customisable biocontrol agents with the potential to eliminate harmful microorganisms in a range of environments.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3107 - Microbiology. Lead: Dr Andy Leu

Intelligent sensing and communications for 6G Vehicle-to-Everything Systems. This project investigates the open challenges of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC)-empowered vehicle-to-everything (V2X) systems in sixth-generation (6G) networks. The project expects to advance knowledge and develop pragmatic technologies for realising reliable, efficient and robust ISAC-enabled V2X, by exploiting communication theory, optimisation theory and machine learning technology. The expected outcomes include practical multi-target sensing, self-configurable signal detection, and adaptive resource allocation designs. This project would significantly benefit the Australian vehicular industry and intelligent transportation systems, regarding decreased traffic congestion, improved road safety and reduced vehicle emissions.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4006 - Communications Engineering. Lead: Dr QINGQING CHENG

Enhancing Australian Dark Matter Searches with Quantum Technology. The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in the Universe and detecting it would represent an enormous paradigm shift. This research aims to enhance Australia's efforts in dark matter detection by designing new experimental searches for dark matter and developing quantum technologies to improve existing experiments. Future quantum technologies are expected to revolutionise computing, sensing, and other fields. This DECRA will make strides in both areas: extending dark matter detectors into new regimes, and developing new technologies with applications beyond fundamental physics. The potential impacts of dark matter discovery are staggering, and difficult to overstate, and this DECRA will bring it closer to reality.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5107 - Particle and High Energy Physics. Lead: Dr Benjamin McAllister

Understanding and control of quantum nonlocality in complex scenarios. The future quantum internet and cybersecurity are dependent on quantum nonlocality, referring to the strong correlations between distant quantum physical systems. Nonlocality has been studied mostly in two-party scenarios. This project aims to understand and realize multiparty scenarios. It expects to create significant new knowledge on complex quantum networks, generating new nonlocality forms. Anticipated outcomes include innovative quantum optics protocols and causal inference techniques enabling quantum nonlocality in diverse networks, opening new paths for quantum technology. Expected benefits will impact the future quantum internet with the ultimate cybersecurity for transferring economic, personal, health, and government data.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5108 - Quantum Physics. Lead: Dr Emanuele Polino

Listenability: responsive policymaking for young people. This project expects to assess the extent to which young people with disability and young carers feel heard by policy and service organisations. Using a co-production research approach that centres the voices of young people with lived experience, new knowledge about citizen engagement processes will be generated. Expected outcomes of this project include methodological and theoretical insights into the politics of listening in co-produced research, capacity building for emerging disability and care researchers, and enhanced policy and civil society engagement for young people. This should provide significant benefits in informing and shaping responsive, user-centred disability and carer support for Australia’s future.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4407 - Policy and Administration. Lead: Dr Laura Davy

Resolving Star Formation at its Peak. This project aims to quantify where and under what conditions half the stars in today's Universe formed, via a novel approach combining the highest-resolution observations and simulations yet of galaxies at the peak epoch for star formation. Expected outcomes of this project include new insights into how stars form and how the galaxies they reside in settle into disks. Since these research topics are major science drivers for next-generation telescopes like the Giant Magellan Telescope and Square Kilometre Array, this project will benefit a new generation of research. Moreover, through this project, young Australians will receive the scientific and technical training needed to lead this ground-breaking astronomical research.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Melanie Kaasinen

Sustainable Electrosynthesis of Urea and Formamide. Urea and formamide are vital in modern agriculture, chemical industries, and pharmaceuticals, yet their current industrial production is unsustainable due to high energy and environmental costs. This project aims to design high-efficiency catalysts for electrochemical urea and formamide synthesis through theoretical simulations. The primary objective is to gain new insights into electrocatalysis by systematically exploring reaction mechanisms. Anticipated outcomes will develop optimal catalysts with high conversion efficiency and establish universal theoretical principles. This research will, in the long term, lead to increased production of crops and medicines, reduced costs in chemical industries, and improved environmental protection.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Junxian Liu

Chiral photonics with resonant meta-structures. The project aims to address the big challenges of miniaturising optical elements controlling light handedness and polarisation that are crucial for high-speed information processing. The project will employ artificially engineered nanostructures, and it expects to generate new fundamental knowledge in photonics to enhance optical chirality beyond the limits available in natural materials through optical resonances and the use of novel materials. Expected outcomes include the development of advanced concepts in optics, novel methods in computational photonics, and practical designs and demonstrations of highly efficient chiral nanostructures. This research promises substantial benefits to optical data processing and telecommunications.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4018 - Nanotechnology. Lead: Dr Kirill Koshelev

Sustainable Statistical Computing for Climate-Sensitive Science. This project aims to address the substantial carbon footprint of simulation-based statistical computations underpinning modern science. Current research focuses on reducing the time-to-result for computations at the expense of energy efficiency. Thus it is not currently possible to scale-up computations to address great environmental challenges without increased contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Expected project outcomes are new simulation-based inference algorithms designed to be fast, accurate, and energy-efficient. Novel, readily available, low-power computer hardware will be used to demonstrate the future of low-energy statistical computing for climate-sensitive applications in health, environment and sustainability.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4905 - Statistics. Lead: Dr David Warne

Understanding structure, dynamics and function of receptor splice variants. This project aims to understand the functional role of a specific class of G protein-coupled receptors by leveraging advanced cryo-electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and computational approaches. This project will address fundamental knowledge gaps of how different isoforms of the receptor affect its signalling behaviour. Examining the shape and conformational dynamics of receptor isoforms provides a richer understanding of their cellular function. The comprehensive structural and functional data will allow us to produce molecular movies to better communicate the dynamic receptor activation process. This should provide significant benefits to the Australian community by visualising receptor isoforms with altered physiological function.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Sarah Piper

Uncovering the evolution of the nitrogen cycle with carbonate chemistry . Nitrogen is essential for all life on Earth, but current methods are unable to quantify many aspects of the evolving nitrogen cycle, impeding our understanding of its effects on ecosystems and environmental change. This project will pioneer a groundbreaking method using nitrogen species trapped inside carbonate minerals to directly measure ocean nitrogen abundances and isotope compositions over Earth history. The new method developed by this project will revolutionize our grasp of complex patterns in the nitrogen cycle and its effects on life and Earth. These insights will not only bolster foundational scientific knowledge but also pave the way for informed environmental interventions and further discoveries in environmental science.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3703 - Geochemistry. Lead: Dr Matthew Dodd

Quantifying the long-term economic impacts of bushfire smoke in Australia. The project aims to provide a new understanding of the long-term economic cost of bushfire smoke in Australia. Individuals exposed to bushfire smoke suffer adverse economic outcomes due to multiple channels. To date, the data and methods available have been insufficient to evaluate long-term effects and inform an appropriate policy response. This project leverages recent data advances and builds upon methods employed in my past research to provide a new empirical method for risk profiling of long-term smoke exposure and to generate an improved understanding of the associated economic costs. The findings would aid government agencies, fire services, and local communities in re-evaluating bushfire management practices.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3801 - Applied Economics. Lead: Dr Hemant Pullabhotla

Unravelling chiral recognition to improve sensing and separation efficiency. Chiral molecules, analogous to our hands, appear similar but don’t match exactly. Accurate identification of these molecules is crucial as the two different forms can have dramatically different functions, which can mean the difference between a drug helping or harming. This project will explore chiral interactions using an integrated single-entity electrochemistry approach. Investigating these interactions in real-time will reveal fundamental mechanisms of chiral recognition, enabling the ability to control surface chiral affinity. The project will benefit Australia by inventing effective detection and separation technologies for certain chiral molecules, hence improving the purity and efficacy of medicines, agriculture, and food products.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3401 - Analytical Chemistry. Lead: Dr NA KONG

Explainable Fuzz Testing for Software Vulnerability Detection. Fuzz testing (or fuzzing), a widely used method for identifying software vulnerabilities, lacks clear explanations due to its inherent randomness, hampering its core mechanisms' comprehension. This project addresses this gap by enhancing the explainability of fuzzing techniques, a fundamental yet understudied research area. It aims to unravel the core mechanisms behind fuzzing by rigorously applying program analysis techniques.The newfound explainable knowledge will systematically improve existing techniques, validate new approaches, and contribute to educating future software developers, ensuring Australia's secure and high-quality software development landscape. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4612 - Software Engineering. Lead: Dr Yuekang Li

Advancing meta-thermoelectrics through dual-channel phonon engineering. This project aims to develop dual-channel phonon engineering for decreasing thermal conductivity, which can not only deliver new knowledge in heat conduction and phonon transport theories, but also significantly advance meta-thermoelectrics. Expected outcomes include a scalable strategy to obtain thermoelectric materials with ultralow thermal conductivity which boosts the figure-of-merit to over 3.0, and enhanced capacity for modulating microscopic heat conduction that can be deployed in high-density and high-efficiency thermoelectric devices for autonomous power generation and miniaturised heat management. This project will benefit markets of personal electronics and hybrid vehicles and promote Australia’s net zero emission target by 2050.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Meng Li

Quantum Dot Hybrids for Methanol Photoreforming. This project aims to develop heavy-metal-free quantum dots hybrid materials for solar-driven reforming of methanol into high-value chemicals accompanied with carbon emissions-free, zero-pollution hydrogen production. The project expects to contribute new knowledge in the colloidal synthesis of quantum materials by overcoming the challenges of organic-inorganic synthesis barriers and providing platform technologies for handling highly efficient photocatalysts. This project will address the critical challenges in methanol photoreforming, and significantly contribute to Australia’s sustainable hydrogen industry and value-adding export economy.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Dechao Chen

Emerging blue carbon pathways as natural climate solutions. This project aims to uncover whether two previously-overlooked pathways of the coastal carbon cycle can provide climate mitigation benefits. Using innovative experiments and oceanographic modelling, this project will quantify coastal carbon injection to the deep sea and carbon storage in unvegetated shelf sediments, helping solve outstanding questions regarding the role of coastal vegetated ecosystems in the ocean carbon budget. Project outcomes will deliver robust models for cost-effective carbon accounting, and a tool to verify the climate benefits of managing coastal ecosystems. This will facilitate the development of novel climate mitigation activities, positioning Australia at the leading edge of ocean-based climate action. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4101 - Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. Lead: Dr Albert Pessarrodona Silvestre

Enhancing residual trapping of CO2 during geological sequestration. The project aims to investigate CO2 trapping in porous media during cyclic CO2-water injection by developing an advanced pore-scale model for multiphase flow. Following validation using 3D-printed micromodels, simulations with a wide range of process parameters will identify conditions for maximum trapping. The project expects to generate new knowledge of the effects of fluid properties and flow conditions on CO2 trapping efficiency and a deeper understanding of how pore geometry and spatial heterogeneity affect multiphase flow processes in porous media. The developed simulation technique and new knowledge will enable enhanced CO2 geologic storage efficiency and reduced risk of leakage and hence wider use of carbon geosequestration.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4012 - Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Engineering. Lead: Dr Zhongzheng Wang

Knowledge Enriched Approach for Effective Personalization. This project aims to integrate the strength of both knowledge and data to generate effective personalization using a novel neural-symbolic machine learning approach. This project expects to solve several challenges in pure data driven approaches (e.g., data sparsity, data bias and lack of transparency) while leveraging the simplicity of heuristic-based approaches. Expected outcomes include a novel neural-symbolic approach for user modelling that is applicable to personalisation problems in a wide range of industries. This is expected to provide significant benefit to public organisations through enabling provision of personalised service by better understanding individual users (e.g., personalized learning and personalized medicine).. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Weiqing Wang

Generative Models for Generalised Skeleton-based Human Action Recognition. This project aims to develop innovative techniques rooted in generative models for more generalised human action recognition using privacy-preserving skeleton sequences. This project expects to contribute new knowledge in data-efficient learning, zero-shot learning, and domain adaptation through the development of novel methods. Expected outcomes of this project include novel techniques for generating skeleton data and enhancing action recognition models, enabling models to recognise unseen actions and adapt to diverse domains with limited training data. This should provide significant benefits to science, society, and the economy nationally and internationally, through various applications such as in autonomous vehicles and healthcare.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4611 - Machine Learning. Lead: Dr Qiuhong Ke

Hydrogen Hub Futures. This project aims to assist Australia’s developing hydrogen industry deliver its potential decarbonization, economic and social benefits, by critically examining the hydrogen hub model and its impact on regional communities. This project expects to generate new knowledge by being the first ethnographic study of Australia’s emerging hydrogen industry. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced understanding of the consequences of the hydrogen hub model and its impacts for regional communities, theoretical development in the social sciences of industrial decarbonisation, a documentary film for research dissemination, and policy recommendations for hydrogen development planning that take into account community concerns and desires. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4401 - Anthropology. Lead: Dr Kari Dahlgren

Solving a mercurial mystery: the evolutionary origin of mercury methylation. This project aims to investigate the evolutionary origin of microbial mercury methylation, testing a possible link with arsenic resistance. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the areas of biogeochemistry and microbial genetics using a multi-omics approach to explore why microbes produce this more toxic form of mercury. Expected outcomes include expanding our understanding of the biochemical mechanism of mercury methylation and improving predictions of the production and accumulation of this toxin in aquatic ecosystems. This should provide significant environmental benefits, such as informing Australian regulation of mercury emissions, limiting the toxic effects of mercury on humans and wildlife, and its burden on food safety.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4105 - Pollution and Contamination. Lead: Dr Caitlin Gionfriddo