Keynote Speakers

Professor Nicole Pamme

Nicole Pamme obtained a Diploma in Chemistry from the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1999. For her PhD studies she went to Imperial College London (UK) where she joined the group of Prof. Andreas Manz. It was here that she first started working with microfluidic devices, more specifically, on single particle analysis inside microfluidic channels. In 2004, she moved to Tsukuba (Japan) as an independent research fellow in the International Centre for Young Scientists (ICYS) based at the Japanese National Institute for Materials Science. She was appointed as a Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Hull in the UK in 2005 and was promoted to senior lecturer in 2010, Reader in 2013 and Professor in 2014. Her research evolves around the study of microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices for environmental analysis on-site, for clinical diagnostics at the point-of-care and the synthesis of smart materials. She has authored >120 peer reviewed publications in this area. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Prof. Pamme is an Associate Editor of the Analyst (RSC Publishing) and serves on the editorial advisory boards of Analytical Chemistry (ACS), Lab on a Chip (RSC) and Analytica Chimica Acta (Elsevier). She chaired the microTAS 2016 conference in Dublin and sits on the Board of Directors of the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS), currently as its Vice President. Her teaching activities include lectures on microanalytical and forensic chemistry as well as biosensors; Nicole has also co-authored a textbook for UG students on Bioanalytical Chemistry, now in its second edition.

Professor Madhu Bhaskaran

Professor Madhu Bhaskaran co-leads the Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group at RMIT University. She has won numerous awards and fellowships for her research including 2017 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher and was also named as Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers by Engineers Australia. In 2018, she won the Batterham Medal and the APEC Aspire Prize. The discoveries made at micro/nano-scales by the research group are transformed into prototypes often in partnership with industry. Her work seeks to transform conventional hard electronics into soft and unbreakable products, thin enough to create electronic skin.

Professor Su Chen

Prof. Su Chen is the deputy dean of College of Chemical Engineering and a full professor of State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering at Nanjing Tech University, as well as the director of Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Fine Chemical & Functional Polymer Materials. Prof. Chen received his PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from Nanjing University of Technology (Nanjing Tech University) in 2001. After postdoctoral research at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Southern Mississippi in the USA, he moved back to Nanjing Tech University as a full professor. Till now Prof. Chen has presided over 15 national projects including National Natural Science Foundation, National High Technology Research and Development Program, and Key Projects in the National Science and Technology Pillar Program. He has published more than 240 research papers in famous international journals (e.g. Nat. Commun., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Adv. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Mater. Horiz., Adv. Sci.). He was awarded as a TOP 1% Highly-cited Chinese researcher in 2018. He has published more than 240 SCI papers, and filed 50 patents which have been very successful commercially. His team has created a new microfluidic spinning technique for facile synthesis of functional fibers for applications in the areas of lighting, display, sensing, supercapacitors and artificial skin.

Associate Professor Chun-Xia Zhao

Associate Professor Chun-Xia Zhao is a Group Leader, a UQ Amplify Fellow and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at The University of Queensland, Australia. She leads a research team with a focus on the development of micro and nanostructures based on bio-inspired engineering and microfluidics for controlled release and drug delivery. She has been focusing on innovative research as evidenced by her six patents. A/Prof Zhao’s research has attracted more than $6 M in research funding since 2011, including six Australian Research Council projects as the lead investigator or sole investigator, two national prestigious fellowship (Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship and Future Fellowship), ten UQ grants including two UQ fellowships (UQ Development Fellowships and UQ Amplify Fellowships) as well as industry funding. She has been recognised for scientific excellence with a 2016 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award. She was appointed as member of the 2019 Australian Research Council College of Experts (2019-2021). She has built extensive collaborations with scientists at top universities such as Harvard University, Cornell University, Brown University, etc.

Professor Michael Breadmore

Professor Breadmore obtained his PhD from the University of Tasmania in 2001 before completing successive one year postdoctoral positions at the University of Virginia and the University of Bern, followed by a 9 month position as a senior scientist with a start-up company in London. He returned to the University of Tasmania as an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (2004-2008) followed by subsequent ARC fellowships (QEII 2009-2013; Future Fellow 2014-2017). He was awarded his DSc from the University of Tasmania in 2017. His research interests lie in the application of capillary and microchip electrophoresis to the trace analysis of environmental, clinical, and forensic samples, as well as in methods for the low-cost fabrication of microfluidic devices.