Projects to boost renewable energy, mitigate climate change, advance mathematics, enhance operational efficiency and technology, assist reproduction, and advance food sustainability and conservation have been awarded Federal Government funding.
The University of Western Australia researchers received more than $8.7 million for 12 projects through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects 2026 scheme.
Associate Professor John Bamberg, from UWA's School of Physics, Mathematics and Computing, was awarded a grant to accelerate the development of geometric tools.
"Ramsey theory is a branch of mathematics that studies the counter-intuitive phenomenon that in a large chaotic network there is a quantifiable degree of order within it," Associate Professor Bamberg said.
"Finite geometers have bridged the divide and found geometric order within chaos and we aim to exploit this further and accelerate the development of geometric tools in Ramsey Theory."
Professor Mohammed Bennamoun from UWA's School of Physics, Mathematics and Computing, and Professor Farid Boussaid, from UWA's School Engineering, received funding to process video data.
"We aim to develop an advanced AI system capable of identifying and retrieving precise moments in video based on text queries," Professor Bennamoun said.
"This capability will be valuable in sectors such as homeland security, crime prevention, transportation, retail and entertainment, enhancing operational efficiency and decision-making."
Professor Britta Bienen, from UWA's Oceans Institute and School of Earth and Oceans, received funding for a project to enable low noise offshore foundation installation for renewable energy.
"We expect to directly link seabed information obtained offshore with fundamental new geotechnical insights," Professor Bienen said.
"Expected outcomes include significantly reduced uncertainties of low noise foundation installation, which should lead to environmental, economic and societal benefits of affordable clean energy."
Professor Scott Draper, from UWA's Oceans Institute and School of Engineering, Professor Ryan Lowe, from UWA's Oceans Institute and School of Earth and Oceans, and Associate Professor Marco Ghisalberti and Dr Hongwei An, from UWA's School of Engineering, received funds for a project to design resilient nature-based coastal protection.
"Sea-level rise and increasing extreme storm events have accelerated demand for artificial reefs to protect against coastal flooding and erosion, with significant research effort being focused on how modular reefs can be optimally configured to attenuate incident waves and provide marine habitat," Professor Draper said.
"To enable resilient design, this project will use novel experiments and field observations to develop approaches to predict and mitigate local scour of modular reefs and develop new design guidelines."
Professor Jon Evans, from UWA's School of Biological Sciences, was awarded a grant to investigate the causes and consequences of modification to sperm that occur after spawning in mussels, which can influence function and viability.
"Expected outcomes include a revision of our understanding of gene expression in mature sperm and data that explores the evolutionary implications of haploid selection," Professor Evans said.
"Benefits will be relevant across assisted reproduction, fertility and the resilience of populations to environmental change."
Dr Renée Firman, Associate Professor Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez and Professor Leigh Simmons, from UWA's School of Biological Sciences, were funded to investigate the transgenerational nature of microplastic toxicity in mammals.
"Transgenerational microplastic toxicity is set to have far-reaching repercussions for population persistence," Dr Firman said.
"This project will generate new knowledge on how degrading plastic waste will affect mammals, which is important for the conservation of threatened species and human health."
Associate Professor Gavin Flematti and Associate Professor Mark Waters, from UWA's School of Molecular Sciences, and Dr Danica Goggin, from UWA's School of Agriculture and Environment, were funded for a project to identify a new plant hormone.
"We aim to discover the identity of an unknown plant hormone that controls aspects of plant development including seed germination and responses to stress," Associate Professor Flematti said.
"This project will reveal how plants produce, metabolise and respond to this new hormone and improve plant performance to boost food production and improve restoration outcomes."
Associate Professor Einar Fridjonsson and Professor Michael Johns, from UWA's School of Engineering, received a grant to enhance magnesium mineral carbonation for sustainable carbon storage.
"We aim to quantify the effect of water composition (ionic and pH) on the efficiency of magnesium-based carbon mineralisation to exploit a unique Australian combination of natural acidic brine and mafic mine tailings to continuously produce optimal carbonate products and enable economic carbon capture," Associate Professor Fridjonsson said.
Professor Nicole Jones, Dr Matthew Rayson, Dr Adam Sykulski and Dr Andrew Zulberti, from UWA's School of Earth and Oceans, and Dr Lachlan Astfalck, from UWA's School of Physics, Mathematics and Computing, received a grant to calculate ocean heat pathways at Ningaloo in a changing climate.
"We will address the risk of extreme warming events at Ningaloo by quantifying the ocean heat transport between the Indian Ocean and the Ningaloo Coast through new observations and the development of a data-driven predictive ocean circulation model," Professor Jones said.
"This will enable the identification of high-risk coastal regions as well as areas of that remain largely unaltered to guide protection and restoration efforts."
Professor Eric May and Associate Professor Gang Li, from UWA's School of Engineering, received funding for a project to redefine pH and advance electrolyte thermodynamics.
"We aim to quantify important reactions like the uptake of CO2 by the oceans more accurately than currently possible," Professor May said.
"Expected outcomes include new pH standards with uncertainties 10 times smaller than existing definitions, and software tools for predicting the properties of real-world solutions that should provide benefits like CO2 capture by brine mineralisation and CO2 conversion to clean fuels."
Professor Harvey Millar, from UWA's School of Molecular Sciences, received funding to improve nitrogen use efficiency in crops.
"We aim to better understand and improve nitrogen nutrition in wheat and barley using a gene family discovered in legumes and rice," Professor Millar said.
"We just discovered the protein it encodes regulates an enzyme in plant biology that offers a novel means to boost fertiliser use efficiency."
Professor Stephen Moggach and Professor Paul Low, from UWA's School of Molecular Sciences, received funding for a project to develop flexible, responsive and energy-efficient electronics.
"We will use pressure to fine-tune interactions between molecules and create new design paradigms for molecular electronics," Professor Moggach said.
"The expected outcomes include a better understanding of how pressure modulates molecular interactions, which could lead to the development of new technologies such as sensors, electronics and energy harvesting."
