Four mid-career researchers at the University of Newcastle are among the first in Australia to be named by the Australian Government as Future Fellows.
The Fellowships, announced today by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, will provide Dr Victoria Haskins, Professor Reza Moheimani, Professor Michael Ostwald and Dr Mark Parsons with more than $3 million over four years.
Dr Mark Parsons* will develop a new imaging tool to achieve two outcomes - measuring the impact of a stroke on the patient and enhanced testing of current treatments designed to reduce the scale of a stroke.
Professor Moheimani is an electrical engineer working in nanotechnology - the science of manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular scale - to develop ultra-fast microscopes.
Architecture Professor Michael Ostwald will use robotics technology to develop a computer model that analyses architectural space, including buildings, from a social and cultural perspective.
Historian Dr Haskins will investigate the forcible placement of Indigenous Australian girls and women in domestic service during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
A mid-career researcher is a person with five to 15 years experience since the award of their PhD.
"Mid-career researchers are the backbone of the innovation sector in Australia," the University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Mike Calford, said.
"Grants such as these from the Australian Research Council are critically important to acknowledge and support the groundbreaking work of our local mid-career researchers and give them the resources to stay in Newcastle."
Two hundred Fellowships have been awarded across Australia for mid-career researchers conducting work in areas of national priority.
* Dr Parsons is a Staff Specialist in Neurology at Hunter New England Health, Director of the Acute Stroke Unit at the Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital, Head of the HMRI Stroke Research Group and a conjoint appointment of the University of Newcastle.
