Speakers

Dr. Boyce is a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories.  Dr. Boyce received the B.S. degree from Michigan Technological University in 1996 in Metallurgical Engineering and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1998 and 2001 from the University of California at Berkeley.  Dr. Boyce joined the technical staff at Sandia in 2001 where his research interests lie in micromechanisms of deformation and failure.  He has published over 175 peer reviewed articles and holds 6 U.S. patents on topics such as microsystems reliability, nanoindentation, fracture in structural alloys, weld metallurgy, and fatigue mechanisms. Dr. Boyce is a past recipient of the Hertz Foundation fellowship, the J. Keith Brimacombe Medal, and the Marcus A. Grossman Young Author award.  He also served as the 2023 president of TMS, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials society.

Distinguished Professor Brian G. Falzon is Dean of Engineering, Design and Built Environment at Western Sydney University and Chair of Advanced Composite Materials and Aerospace Structures. Previously, he served as Distinguished Professor at RMIT University (2021–2023), where he also led RMIT’s Space Industry Hub and the Victorian Node of the SmartSat CRC. He was Head of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast (2015–2021) and held the prestigious UK Royal Academy of Engineering–Bombardier Chair in Aerospace Composites (2012-2017). He was Foundation Chair in Aerospace Engineering at Monash University (2008–2012),  Director of Research, and Head of Aerospace Engineering. He spent over a decade at Imperial College London, progressing from postdoctoral fellow to academic staff member.

Prof Falzon earned his PhD, BEng (first-class honours), and BSc from the University of Sydney.

A world-leading expert (top 1% in Materials Science, Elsevier 2023), he focuses on the computational analysis, design, manufacture, and testing of advanced composite structures. His work influenced the Boeing 787 and FA-18E/F Australian programs and contributed to the UK’s Next Generation Composite Wing and NASA’s Advanced Composites Project.

He has received multiple awards, including three from the Royal Aeronautical Society and an Australian Leadership Award (2009) from the ADC Forum. As co-founder of Veryan Medical Ltd, he holds patents for a vascular biomimetic stent honoured with a 2022 Good Design Award from the Japan Institute of Design Promotion. In 2018, he was named ‘Belfast Ambassador of the Year’ for promoting advanced manufacturing and securing the 23rd International Conference on Composite Materials for the city.

Professor Stefanie Feih received her PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2002, a Master’s Degree from Cornell University, USA, in 1997 and a Mechanical Engineering degree from TU Darmstadt, Germany, in 1998. She commenced as a Professor in the School for Engineering and Built Environment at Griffith University in 2021 and as Director of ADaPT, the Advanced Design and Prototyping Technologies Institute at Griffith, in 2023. With over 25 years of experience, Stefanie has specialised in the analysis, design and optimization of lightweight structures, having worked and lived in Denmark, Singapore and Australia. She is deeply passionate about achieving synergistic outcomes through experimental and numerical analyses to advance our engineering understanding of the fundamental mechanics and failure of multi-functional structures. Currently, she is leading Research Program 1 of the recently awarded Solving Plastic Waste CRC (2024 – 2034). Stefanie also served as an Editor for Composites Part B: Engineering from 2020 – 2024 and has been listed in the top 2% of world-wide researchers in the field of Materials (Stanford rankings) since 2020.

Christopher Hutchinson is the Alcoa Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He obtained his PhD from the University of Virginia (USA), and after a post-doc at Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), returned to Melbourne to take up a Faculty position at Monash University.

His interests are in the physical and mechanical metallurgy of engineering alloys with a particular emphasis on steels, Al alloys and Cu and brasses. His work is split approximately equally between theory/modelling and experiment, and around half of his work is in collaboration with industry. He is the co-chair of the Woodside Energy FutureLab at Monash, and leads the activities on 3D metal printing in this centre. He is an Editor for Acta and Scripta Materialia.

Dr Qing Li is a Professor in School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Sydney (USYD), Australia. Qing is currently the Director of “Centre of Advanced Materials Technology (CAMT)” at USYD. Dr Li received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2000; and he was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2001-03) as well as an ARC Future Fellow (2013-17). Prof Li is interested in fracture mechanics, computational optimization, biomechanics, biofabrication, and additive manufacturing. Professor Li is the President of International Society of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (ISSMO) (2023-27) and have been named a Clarivate analytics “Highly Cited Researcher” since 2020. Professor Li published over 400 research articles in leading international journals with an h-index of 107 (Google Scholar).

Prof. Mai Yiu Wing received his PhD, DSc and DSc (honoris causa) from the University of Hong Kong in 1972, 1999 and 2013, respectively. In December 1976, he left Imperial College London and joined the staff at the University of Sydney where he obtained the DEng degree and rose to a University Chair. He returned to PolyU in HK in November 2023 as a Distinguished Chair Professor. His research interests are fracture mechanics and advanced composites. Prof. Mai is the recipient of the Scala Award of ICCM in 2015; the AA Griffith Medal of the UK IOM3, and the AGM Michell Medal of Engineers Australia in 2016; the ASME Warner T. Koiter Medal and the Silver Medal of Materials Australia in 2023. He was elected to the fellowships of prestigious academies including ForMemCAE (2017), FREng (2011), FRS (2008), FHKEng (2003), FAA (2001), and FTSE (1992).

Ondrej Muránsky is a Research Program Manager at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and an Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales, where he supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students. He represents Australia at the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) as a member of the Expert Group and the committees for Very High-Temperature and Molten Salt Reactor Systems.

Ondrej completed a PhD in the Physics of Condensed Matter and Materials Research at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Since earning his doctorate, he has gained extensive experience in multidisciplinary research and industrial projects. His work focuses on diffraction-based experimental techniques and numerical modelling, particularly in multi-scale modelling and integrated computational materials engineering. He has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications, with nearly 3,500 citations.

His current research investigates material degradation under the operating conditions of future energy-generation systems and advanced manufacturing, combining experimental studies with numerical simulations.

Michael is Professor of Structural Materials and Director for Research Infrastructure within the Faculty of Engineering while also still keeping a part time position at the University of Manchester where he spent 21 year of his research career. Before he relocated to Melbourne, he was Deputy Director of the Nuclear Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre at the University of Manchester, led the Materials Systems for Demanding Environment Theme within the Henry Royce Institute, UK’s National Institute for Advanced Materials Research and Innovation and led two Centre of Excellence related to nuclear manufacturing and nuclear fuel cladding.

Michael's research focuses on engineering alloys typically used by the transport and power generation sector. A central aspect of his research is to develop a more physically based understanding of the development of microstructures during processing/manufacturing and the mechanisms that determine their performance/degradation in demanding environments. In his research he utilises a multiscale characterisation approach employing electron microscopy, diffraction and x-ray imaging techniques. An important aspect of his work has been the development of in-situ methodologies using neutron scattering, synchrotron x-ray sources, and electron microscopy. 

Michael has published in excess of 330 peer reviewed publications, 3 book chapters and is editor of Elsevier’s Journal of Nuclear Materials. In May 2019, Michael received the ASTM Kroll Medal for his lifetime achievements in zirconium fuel cladding research. In the same year Michael was also elected Fellow of the UK Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

Prof. Yixia (Sarah) Zhang is Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Science and Technology, Deputy Chair of University Academic Senate, Co-Director of Centre for Advanced Manufacturing Technology at Western Sydney University (WSU). Before moving to WSU in 2019, she worked in the University of New South Wales for 15 years staying 12 years in UNSW Canberra. She received her PhD on Structural Engineering from the University of Hong Kong in 2001. Prof. Zhang has published over 400 peer-reviewed scholarly research papers. She was awarded research grant of over $15 million from various funding schemes including Austrian Research Council, industries and government. Her research focuses on Composite Materials and Structures, Advanced Manufacturing Technology and engineering numerical modelling with applications in Civil Engineering and Mechanical/Aeronautical Engineering.