OUR Executive Team

Centre Director
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YuanTong leads a large research group in mechanical engineering with particular focus on nanotechnology and nanodevices. He is an expert in advanced experimental and numerical computational modelling for biomechanics. He is an ARC Future Fellow.

Deputy Centre Director
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Peter leads biomechanics research across the Faculty of Science and Engineering at QUT with a focus on transdisciplinary musculoskeletal research. His interests are in mechanobiology, multiscale modelling and bioengineering. He is the Chair of QUT Biomedical Engineering and also serves as the President of the Australia New Zealand Society of Biomechanics.

Centre Manager
Maddie McIntyre
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Maddie is a biomedical engineer with extensive experience in managing business and operations in the medical technology sector. She is passionate about supporting the development of personalized medical technologies and facilitating their effective integration in the clinical setting. In her role as Centre Manager, Maddie guides the multidisciplinary team from academic, clinical and industry partners to reach the strategic goals of the Centre

Clinician
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Ken is an experienced subspecialist orthopaedic shoulder surgeon. He is the current Queensland Chairman of the Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons (ASOS); an elected member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Queensland Regional Committee; and Scientific Secretary of the Queensland Branch of the AOA .

Clinician
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Ashish is a Brisbane based subspecialist orthopaedic shoulder surgeon. He is the founder of QUASR and has keen biomechanical research interests having completed a Masters in Science. His list of publications includes papers in international peer reviewed journals and numerous book chapters. Ashish actively participates in orthopaedic education and training.

Program Leader
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Program LEADER
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Program Leader
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Justin is the Head of the School of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland (UQ) and Professor of Bioengineering in the UQ School of Chemical Engineering. He is Senior Group Leader in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (UQ), Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility – Queensland Node (ANFF-Q), Co-Director of the UQ Centre in Stem Cell Ageing and Regenerative Engineering (UQ-StemCARE), Chief Scientific Officer of Scaled Biolabs Inc., a lab-on-a chip start-up based in San Francisco, and Editor-in-Chief of APL Bioengineering, published by American Institute of Physics Publishing (New York). Justin’s research interests are in biomaterials, cell therapy, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He has over 200 journal papers, published in high impact journals in these fields. He has produced six Worldwide patent families that have reached National Phase Entry in USA, Europe, and Australia in the areas of formulation design for agriproducts, microbioreactor arrays and tissue engineering scaffolds.

Program Leader
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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.