Student topics

With global temperatures rising there is a collective interest in how to best minimise the detrimental effects of heat on human health, physiology, and performance. Many of us will experience the effects of heat, however, the detrimental impacts on health and athletic performance are not always equal. For those who are required to perform optimally in the heat, be it for work or sports performance, and for individuals with diminished heat tolerance, identifying suitable strategies to mitigate the negative effects …

Study level

Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences

Optical limiting uses a medium’s nonlinear response to allow light at low intensities to be transmitted, but restricts transmission at high intensities so as to safeguard sensitive detectors including the eye. A popular nonlinear process used in optical limiters is two photon absorption where two high intensity light photons are simultaneously absorbed thereby reducing the light transmission through the medium. Unfortunately, in gold nanoparticle optical limiters a second nonlinear process can arise – saturated absorption which leads to an increase …

Study level

Honours, Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

When we age the DNA repair systems of our cells become down regulated. This results in reduced DNA repair capacity, enhanced rates of mutation load and may lead to the development of chronic aging-associated diseases including osteoporosis, Alzheimer's and cancer(1). So it is no surprise that genome instability and stem cell exhaustion, which also strongly correlates with the accumulation of DNA damage, are considered hallmarks of aging(2).However, we still lack a clear understanding on how the decrease in DNA repair …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

A physics simulator is a valuable tool for designing robots. For example, it helps in optimising geometry, choosing appropriate materials, predicting dynamics, and improving control algorithms without having to build a real robot. This allows designers to rapidly test multiple designs before fabricating the robot.Soft robotics is the field that deals with the design of robots using materials like rubbers and plastics that readily deform when a load is applied. This gives a lot more freedom in designing robots that …

Study level

Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Robotics

A challenge when using robotics tools in a medical setting like surgery and endoscopy is the lack of force feedback for the medical practitioner. Commonly used instruments and tools lack the ability to sense forces and therefore this information cannot be conveyed to the operator. By incorporating force sensing technology into these devices, medical professionals can obtain real-time feedback on the amount of pressure being applied to tissues and organs inside the body. This invaluable data enables them to navigate …

Study level

Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Robotics

The geriatric population in Australia (4.2 million 2020, ABS), is growing steadily with numbers expected to double in the coming years. Incidences of spinal disorders requiring surgical treatment are therefore predicted to increase, incurring an estimated lifetime cost of AUD 3.7 billion per case (The Treasury). Robotics, an increasingly important component of modern medicine, is well suited to address the minimally invasive surgical needs of treating the spine.This project proposes the use of a soft-robotic manipulator to carry out spinal …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Robotics

A popular topic in differential geometry involves studying the singularity structure of geometric flows. The most well-known example is mean curvature flow. In this example, surfaces evolve according to a flow rule that relates the speed of the surface to its curvature. Certain surfaces will evolve until singularities occur in finite time, and these singularities can be studied using similarity solutions and asymptotic analysis.In this project, a different perspective is applied to these problems, namely the use of complex variable …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Digital and social media platforms provide new opportunities for public communication, and the formation of distinct publics and communities around shared interests and identities. Such publics may engage in political debate, popular media fandom, science communication, vernacular creativity, and other activities; but they may also be affected by, or actively engage in promoting, mis- and disinformation and other problematic content. Their activities are also shaped by the features and affordances of the platforms they use, from Facebook and Twitter to …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Communication

Research centre(s)

Digital Media Research Centre

Weakly nonlinear waves are described by dispersive pdes, such as the famous Korteweg–De Vries (KdV) equation. These models have applications to a variety of phenomena in physics, including the propagation of water waves, but they are also interesting from a mathematical perspective because they can have special properties.While the KdV equation and its variants are well-studied in the literature, a new approach is to attempt to learn about wave propagation by investigating solution behaviour in complex plane. For example, there …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Dementia is the greatest cause of disability in Australians over the age of 65 years. In the absence of a significant medical breakthrough, more than $6.4 million Australians will be diagnosed with dementia in the next 40 years. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), accounting for 60-80% of cases. The pathogenic process of AD begins decades prior to the clinical onset, so it is likely that treatments need to begin early in the disease process to …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

This research is part of a Future Fellowship project funded by the Australian Research Council. You will join a team of researchers and research students in the school of computer science, with expertise in the disciplines of human computer interactions and data science.In broad terms, the project is seeking to understand how the meaning of images can be computed and used in the design of intelligent interfaces which can be used by and support people with intellectual disability.The visual interactions …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Computer Science

Pain is the most common reason that patients present to the emergency department. Patients with painful conditions such as renal colic or headache are more likely to represent to the emergency department for care within 72 hours of an initial presentation. Currently, little is known about what factors are associated with this representation and whether treatment or patient factors influence the representation of patients.

Study level

Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Research centre(s)

Centre for Healthcare Transformation