Research in our School spans the broad spectrum from fundamental and applied scientific research to industrial and statistical consulting for government policy work and the private sector.
The diversity of disciplines in our School and the common willingness to apply fundamental discipline knowledge and techniques across discipline boundaries have led to a breadth of projects and breakthroughs: innovative low-cost extractive technologies that reduce environmental impact and carbon footprint, strategies for resource recovery from industrial waste streams, understanding and management of hydrophobicity and salinity of Western Australian soils, understanding the charge-transfer mechanisms in organic light emitting diodes, developing strategies for preventing ligament damage based on mathematical tissue models, deciphering the geographic correlations in disease incidence rates, and many more. What unites the diversity of our researchers is the commitment to research that makes a positive difference.
The breadth of research is supported by the free-flowing transfer of expertise, skills and techniques between the disciplines in the School, that is, Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry, Physics, as well as Extractive Metallurgy and Mineralogy.
Expertise within the School includes: physical chemistry; solution chemistry; organic and analytical chemistry; inorganic chemistry; computational chemistry; environmental chemistry; hydrometallurgy; minerals chemistry; hydrothermal geochemistry; condensed matter physics; soft matter physics; statistical physics; optical physics; nanomaterials science; interface and surface physics; systems biology; biomedical physics; mathematical biology; industrial mathematics; fluid flow simulations; computational materials science; differential geometry; variational calculus; spatial statistics; biostatistics; Baysian statistics and many others.
Our School’s research takes place in the interdisciplinary environment created by our community of internationally renowned academics and excellent technical staff. Postgraduate researchers and undergraduate students benefit from the close proximity of teaching and research. Researchers within the School maintain close links to top universities across the globe, as well as to research centres within Australia and the state.
Our research is enabled by competitive grant funding including through the ARC’s Discovery and Linkage programs, by funding through industrial research agencies and through industry collaborations. We gratefully acknowledge all funders and collaborators.