Our Investigators

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Our People
BID TEAM
PROGRAM 1
Marine Bio-products for Human Health and Nutrition

LEADER
Professor Colin Barrow
Deakin University
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- +61 3 5563 3312
- colin.barrow@deakin.edu.au

DEPUTY
Dr Michael Conlon
CSIRO
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- +61 8 8303 8909
- Michael.conlon@csiro.au

INDUSTRY CO-LEADER
Dr Damien Stringer
Marinova
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Damien is an avid supporter of value-added industry and has built a career working with innovative enterprises. Damien graduated with a BSc with 1st Class Honours at the University of Tasmania and worked with Botanical Resources Australia before completing a PhD in Chemistry at UTas, before joining Marinova Pty Ltd in 2008. As Marinova’s Operations Manager, Damien couples his technical expertise with his consultative approach to lead the laboratory, processing and research teams. Damien is a former President of the Tasmanian Branch of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and is a graduate of the Tasmanian Leaders Program.
- +61 3 6248 5800
- damien.stringer@marinova.com.au
PROGRAM 2
Marine-Derived Agricultural Products

LEADER
Professor Ben Hankamer
University of Queensland
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- +61 7 334 62012
- b.hankamer@imb.uq.edu.au

DEPUTY
Professor Rob Capon
University of Queensland
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- +61 7 334 62372
- r.capon@imb.uq.edu.au
PROGRAM 3
Sustainable marine bioresources

LEADER
Professor Catriona MacLeod
University of Tasmania
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Associate Professor Catriona Macleod has a PhD in Aquaculture (UTAS, 2006). Her research focus is on sustainable development and science-based management and decision-making, with specific expertise in environmental, economic and social sustainability.
She is a member of both the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and College of Sciences and Engineering leadership teams within UTAS and is responsible for issues related to the sustainable development of salmonid aquaculture in Tasmania as part of a joint venture agreement with the Tasmanian State Government.
She has a demonstrated ability to connect research with industry, government and community priorities and a track record of delivering outputs on time, within budget and on target.
- +61 3 6226 8237
- Catriona.Macleod@utas.edu.au

DEPUTY
Professor Peer Schenk
University of Queensland
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Professor Peer Schenk completed his PhD in Microbiology at the University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, Germany in 1994. He has since worked for Queensland DPI, CSIRO Plant Industry and three CRCs as Project and Program Leader (CRCs for Tropical Plant Pathology, Tropical Plant Protection and Sugar Industry Innovation through Biotechnology). He currently holds a CRC-P grant valued at $2.1 million on Translational R&D to develop large-scale omega-3 fatty acid production from microalgae.
Professor Schenk is a full-time Teaching & Research academic in the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences (SAFS) at The University of Queensland (UQ) and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Marine Science and the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation. He leads the Algae Biotechnology Lab at UQ and is internationally recognised for his expertise in Plant Biotech and experience with transition from fundamentally new research concepts to industry. He was appointed as APEC representative for biorefinery concepts for Australia.
Schenk’s research pursues sustainable solutions to Food Security by applying cutting-edge biotechnology concepts to plants and microalgae.
He has commercialised technology from 7 patents leading to start-up companies Qponics, Nexgen Plants, Blue Quest and commercial IP in several companies, three of which are industry participants in MBB-CRC. His Australian crop varieties are commercially grown with annual sales >$10 million.
In the last 10 years Prof Schenk has focused on health products from Australian microalgae and pioneered commercial omega-3-rich oil production. In 2013, he established the Algae Energy Farm, a large-scale demonstration farm used regularly by industry as a testbed. It deploys new technologies to produce food, feed and fuel from microalgae. His new concepts for scalable low-cost cultivation, harvesting and processing have been successfully adopted by industry. He has provided training, guidance and technical assistance to the construction of a commercial Chlorella farm in Oman that started operation in March 2017 and is undergoing further upscaling. Similarly, he helped construct a commercial microalgae farm for Mohawk in Miles, (MBB-CRC participant in regional QLD) that commercially produces omega-3-rich Nannochloropsis for aquaculture and human health industries in Australia and Asia.
- +61 7 336 58817
- p.schenk@uq.edu.au

INDUSTRY CO-LEADER
Dr Graeme Barnett
Qponics
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- +61 7 3188 9086
- graeme.barnett@qponics.com
Connect educate train
(CET)

CET LEADER
Professor Kirsten Heimann
Flinders University
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AProf. Heimann obtained a PhD in botany/cell biology (University of Cologne, Germany, 1991).
Since 2008, she held lead roles in education and training (e.g. Associate Dean Teaching and Learning, 2014; AMCRC Science and Education Committee, 2012-2014) and is presently the Research Director of the Australia-China Joint Laboratory for Native Bioresource Industry Innovation (CANBI2).
Kirsten built and led the AMCRC and industry-partnered Microalgae Carbon Capture and Methane Remediation programs and served on the industry steering committee to implement research outcomes at industry level.
Kirsten has over 10 years of experience in managing IP and commercialising research outcomes.