Eleven young researchers heading to Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting

Eleven young early-career researchers from Australia will be attending the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting in Lindau, Germany, including six recently nominated by the Australian Academy of Science and five attendees who attended the 70th meeting virtually in 2021.

The 71st annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, dedicated to chemistry, will be held from 26 June to 1 July and will bring together around 30 Nobel Laureates and around 600 young scientists from around the world.

Participation in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings is proudly supported through the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) and administered by the Australian Academy of Science (AAS).

The six PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers selected in 2022 to attend these meetings as SIEF–AAS Fellows are:

• Dr Amandeep Kaur – researching fluorescent sensors for super-resolution imaging applications at the University of Sydney, and also a recipient of the prestigious JG Russell Award.
• Dr Neil Robinson – researching porous materials for energy applications at the University of Western Australia, and will begin a Forrest Foundation Research Fellowship from May 2022.
• Ms Sanjana Prasad – currently investigating nanochemistry and sensor technology at RMIT University.
• Mr Piyush Sharda – a PhD Candidate at the Australian National University specialising in astronomy, with a particular focus on early universe astrochemistry and chemical evolution of galaxies.
• Mr Matthias Wurdack – researching strong light-matter coupling and exciton-polaritons in atomically-thin semiconductors at the Australian National University, and also the recipient of AIP NSW Award for Postgraduate Excellence in Physics 2020 and the John Carver Award 2020.
• Miss Diana Zhang – a 2021 Fulbright Scholar specialising in analytical chemistry from the University of New South Wales, currently working at Boston University to develop an advanced machine learning method that can diagnose Parkinson’s Disease from a chemical ‘fingerprint’.

The Lindau SIEF–AAS Fellows will receive a grant to enable their attendance at the event and take part in the SIEF Research Innovation Tour in Germany, led by Academy Fellows Emeritus Professor Cheryl Praeger and Emeritus Professor Hans Bachor.

The tour will showcase some of Germany’s finest research and development facilities, while also providing opportunities to share the research done by the young scientists and encourage scientific collaboration between the two countries.

Five of the SIEF–AAS Fellows who attended the 70th meeting virtually in the field of chemistry have also been invited to participate in person and will travel with the cohort selected this year to Lindau:

• Dr Nicole Foster – previously nominated by the University of Adelaide, she is now working at the Flinders University on Environmental DNA.
• Dr Emily Kerr – an NHMRC Early Career Fellow from Deakin University, and also the recipient of the VESKI Fellowship to undertake a 10-week research visit to France for attending a conference in Spain, followed by a short research visit to Italy, prior to heading to Lindau.
• Dr Wenyue Zou – a Superstar of STEM working as a Research Fellow in Applied Chemistry at the RMIT university.
• Dr Adam Sutton – previously nominated by the University of South Australia, he is now in the USA researching green analytical chemistry.
• Dr Lukas Michalek – previously nominated by Queensland University of Technology, he is currently at Stanford University investigating polymeric materials in emerging flexible electronics from molecular scale to applications.

Their cohort from the 70th Meeting in other fields are invited to attend future Lindau Meetings.