Nanotechnology researcher wins Victoria Fellowship

RMIT research fellow Dr Gary Rosengarten is one of six recipients of this year's Victoria Fellowships, awarded to emerging leaders in science, engineering and technology.

Rosengarten is interested in the commercialisation of "lab-on-a-chip" micro- and nanotechnologies, and plans to use the $15,000 travel grant to attend conferences and visit laboratories in the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the US. Ultimately, Rosengarten hopes to be able to help develop a micro- and nanotechnology industry in Victoria. While overseas he expects to brush up on the latest, state-of-the-art developments in the technology, while also learning about requirements for the equipment and infrastructure necessary to get the industry going.

"I hope to use the information I get to increase the infrastructure here," he explained.

In addition, Rosengarten would like to establish collaborative links with the international groups that he visits.

"It's an excellent opportunity for me," said Rosengarten, whose research focuses primarily on biosensors and fluidics.

Other recipients of the Fellowships include:

• Tracey Bessell, a post-doctoral researcher at the Monash Institute of Health Services Research, will travel to the Netherlands and to the UK to study the ways these countries implement cost-effectiveness of medicines into their health systems and how they approach access to public health information for consumers and health professionals.
• Danielle Forster, a researcher at start-up company Dynamic Hearing, will travel to the UK, Scandinavia and Germany to investigate ways to fit hearing-aids more effectively.
• Dr Cindy Yap, from the Australian Centre for Blood Research at Monash University will travel to Canada and Europe to further her research into how to prevent blood clots, which cause heart attack and stroke, from forming.
• Dr Minh Nguyen, a research engineer at the Sir Lawrence Wackett Centre for Aerospace Design Technology, is working on an international collaborative research program between RMIT, the CRC for Advanced Composite Structures and Airbus.
• Rachael Prince, a PhD student at Swinburne University of Technology, who is currently in partnership with South East Water to investigate what causes discoloured drinking water. She will travel to the UK, France and Holland to undertake training in computer modelling of discolouration.

In addition the $50,000 Victoria Prize was awarded to Prof David Boger at the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre at the University of Melbourne for his research into elastic fluids.

"The Victoria Prize and the Victoria Fellowships awarded to young scientists are part of the Bracks Government's long-term strategy to strengthen science, engineering and innovation in Victoria," said John Brumby, announcing the awards.

"By highlighting the achievements of our best and brightest, we hope to encourage the broader community to embrace research, innovative development and commercial realisation of new ventures in science, engineering and technology."