NZHS 2024 - Speaker Bios
Find out more about our Plenary and Invited speakers.
Plenary Speakers
Professor Rose Amal
Professor Rose Amal is a Scientia Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW, Sydney. She is Co-Director of ARC Training Centre for the Global Hydrogen Economy and Lead of NSW Powerfuel including H2 Network. Her current research focuses on designing catalysts for solar and chemical energy conversion applications, making solar chemicals and fuels (such as H2) .
Professor Rose Amal has received numerous prestigious awards including CHEMECA medalist (2021) and named as 2019 NSW Scientist of the Year. She is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (FTSE), a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science (FAA), Fellow of Royal Society NSW (FRSN), Fellow of IChemE, and Honorary Fellow of Engineers Australia. She has received the nation’s top civilian honour – the Companion of the Order of Australia - for her service to chemical engineering, particularly in the field of particle technology, through seminal contributions to photocatalysis, to education as a researcher and academic, and to women in science as a role model and mentor.
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/scientia-professor-rose-amal(external link)
Professor Ajayan Vinu
Prof. Vinu is currently working as a Global Innovation Chair Professor and Director of Global Innovative Center for Advanced Nanomaterials at the University of Newcastle and made a significant contribution in the field of nanoporous materials and their application in energy storage, fuel cells, carbon capture and conversion, hydrogen technologies, catalysis and drug delivery.
His contribution has led to ca. 525 papers with 31,500 citations and a H-index of 91, and more than 32 patents. He has been ranked number 1 (last 20 years) and number 7th (last 50 years) in Australia among the Top 2% scientists in the field of “Materials” as per the database created by the Stanford University in 2020, reflecting his high-quality research and research impact that he made in this field.
The quality of his research has been recognised with several international awards including Medal, Chemical Research Society of India 2018, SPARC award 2019, CNR Rao Lectureship award 2019. Medal and KY NIEM CHUONG Award 2018, Scopus Young Researcher Award 2014, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel award by the Humboldt Society (2010), JSPS Senior Invitational Fellow 2014, Australian Future Fellowship 2010, Indian Society for Chemists and Biologists award for excellence 2010, Catalysis Society of India Young Scientist award 2010, Chemical Society of Japan Award for the Young Scientist 2008, and Laureate of Khwarizmi International Award 2008.
Prof. Vinu is honoured with the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, RACI, World Academy of Ceramics, World Academy of Art and Science, Indian Chemical Society, and Asia-pacific Academy of Materials. Prof. Vinu heads the Australia-Korea Center for Green Ammonia Integrated Power Generation.
https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/ajayan-vinu(external link)
Dr Brandon Wood
Dr. Wood's primary research interests lie in the application of ab initio and mesoscale simulation techniques and high-performance computing to materials for energy storage and conversion. He has led numerous projects in hydrogen storage and production, solid-state batteries, electrocatalysis, and corrosion science. He is currently the Associate Program Lead for Hydrogen & Computational Energy Materials at LLNL.
His research activities center on "beyond-ideal" materials modeling for enable more realistic simulations of device operating environments. Topics of interest include solid-liquid and solid-solid interfaces, electrochemical processes, cooperative dynamics, disordered and amorphous systems, and nonequilibrium behavior. He is also active in the development of computational approaches for multiscale kinetics of physiochemical and electrochemical processes, and in the formulation of descriptors that use physiochemical principles to rapidly predict materials performance and durability.
Dr. Wood is the Theory Lead for the Hydrogen Storage Materials Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC)(external link), funded by the Fuel Cell Technologies Office within the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. HyMARC focuses on the foundational understanding of kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena underlying solid-state hydrogen storage.
He also serves as Deputy Director of the Laboratory for Energy Applications for the Future (LEAF)(external link).
Mr Ohira Eiji
Eiji Ohira is the Director General of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)’s Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Group within the Advanced Battery and Hydrogen Technology Department.
In this capacity, he is responsible the overall strategy, execution and coordination of NEDO’s research, development and demonstration project on fuel cell and hydrogen.
He has also coordinated fuel cell and hydrogen activities with international stakeholders, through International Energy Agency’s Technology Collaboration Program (IEA TCP: Advanced Fuel Cell & Hydrogen), and International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy (IPHE).
He joined the NEDO in 1992, just after graduation from the Tokyo University of Science. He served as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997-1998.
Before taking up the current position in April 2013, he served in several positions, including Representative at NEDO Asian Representative Office, Director of the Energy Storage Technology Division.
Dr Patrick Hartley
Dr. Patrick Hartley is the leader of CSIRO’s Hydrogen Industry Mission. In this role he is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of a major new national research initiative which was launched in May 2021, focussed on delivering research, development and demonstrations which enable the scaleup of Australia’s domestic and export hydrogen industries.
In 2018, he established CSIRO’s Hydrogen Energy Systems Future Science Platform. This major initiative focusses on addressing research challenges which underpin the development of hydrogen energy value chains in Australia. During this time, he co-led the formulation of CSIRO’s ‘National Hydrogen Roadmap, and, with the Chief Scientist of Australia, the briefing paper ‘Hydrogen for Australia’s Future’ which was presented to the Council of Australian Government’s (COAG) Energy council in August 2018.
From 2014-2019 he led the Oil, Gas and Fuels research program within CSIRO's Energy Business Unit. The program comprises 85 research staff and students working on applied research projects which span the energy resources value chain, with a particular emphasis on the sustainable development of Australia’s petroleum resources and on the associated challenges of large scale carbon dioxide storage.
Patrick graduated with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London in 1994, and was subsequently awarded a research fellowship from the Royal Society, London, which allowed him to take up full time research fellowship roles at the University of Melbourne from 1994 to 1998, when he joined CSIRO as a research scientist. Since then, he has led research teams working with national and international large corporations and SME’s to develop new technologies for applications in drug delivery, energy storage, water treatment and petrochemical recovery. He has co-authored more than 90 peer reviewed publications almost all in collaboration with university and/or other research institution partners.
Patrick has occupied senior research management roles in CSIRO since 2006, and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He holds an Adjunct Professorship at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Professor Thomas Klassen
Thomas Klassen holds a shared professorship as director of the Institute for Hydrogen Technology at Helmholtz-Centre Hereon in Geesthacht, and as head of the Institute of Materials Technology at Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany.
His research focusses on photoactive surfaces for green hydrogen generation and hydrogen storage technology based on metal hydrides.
Thomas Klassen is one of the pioneers in the field of nanocrystalline materials for hydrogen storage. He co-authored > 300 papers (with over 16k citations, h-factor 59) and > 50 patent applications, presented > 80 invited talks and keynote Lectures, and is co-founder of the company KSS-Kinetic Spray Solutions GmbH.