Our staff
Associate Professor Niels Quack
Academic Director
Niels is the Academic Director of Research and Prototype Foundry. Niels' background is in micro- and nanosystems engineering, with an emphasis on exploring micro- and nanofabrication techniques, materials, and integration of mechanics and photonics at the micro- and nanoscale.
A/Prof Sergio Leon-Saval
Academic Deputy Director - Advanced FBG Facility
Sergio is Associate Academic Director of the Advanced Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) Facility. He is the Director of the Sydney Astrophotonics Instrumentation Laboratory and his background is in the field of specialty optical fibres, astrophotonics and optical instrumentation systems.
Nelson Briones
Facility and Program Manager
Nelson has more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry before joining RPF. He has an aptitude for leading groups of technical workforce providing equipment and process engineering support within high-volume fast-paced manufacturing and research environment.
Alison Robertson
Operations Manager
Alison has significant operations and project management experience gained across research, medical and financial institutions. She has a proven track record transforming work models to enhance efficiencies and improve outcomes for organisations and groups. She looks forward to applying her experience and skills in this role at the Research & Prototype Foundry.
Lim Wu Sim
External Engagement Manager
Lim has over a decade of experience in Australia’s semiconductor industry, encompassing diverse projects in academia and industry. His expertise lies in end-to-end device fabrication, process development, and integration. He is committed to utilising his background to drive strategic innovation and foster impactful partnerships within the industry. He engages with university, industry, and government partners in the semiconductor sector to identify and develop significant opportunities aligned with the S3B and ANFF strategy.
Hualiang (Eric) Xi
Technical Analyst
Eric supports designing, analysing, and automating business processes, data analysis and data visualisation. He is a skilled Data Analyst who has worked across several industries including banking and telecommunications.
Lars Goran Edvell
Senior Process Engineer: Advanced FBG Facility
Goran Edvell has 20+ years of experience in the photonics industry with special interest in R&D, design, and manufacturing of application specific Fibre Bragg Gratings. Goran has a MSc in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering from Linkoping University, Sweden.
Dr Liguo Luo
Senior Process Engineer: Advanced FBG Facility
Liguo has more than 20 years’ R&D, engineering, and production experience in photonics. His expertise is in photonics devices including fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs), planar lightwave circuits, and fibre lasers. He worked extensively on development of fabrication processes for high performance and high quality FBG devices. As a senior process engineer, he is responsible for developing, engineering and fabricating processes at the Advanced FBG Facility. Liguo received his PhD in Optics from Shandong University.
Dr Jason Hwang
Senior Process Engineer: Quantum Technologies
Jason has expertise in nanofabrication of quantum electronic devices, particularly in electron beam lithography, metal deposition, and liftoff. He completed a PhD at UNSW where he focused on building silicon CMOS quantum devices for spin-based quantum computing. Jason is responsible for various tools and processes including electron beam lithography, SEM, ellipsometer, ALD, evaporator, sputterer, HF wet etch, wire bonding and die bonding.
Roger Ackroyd
Senior Process Engineer: Thin Film Deposition
Roger is a Senior Process Engineer: Thin Film Deposition at ANFF-NSW, University of Sydney. He spent four years working as a nanofabrication process engineer for Microsoft Quantum. In this role, and prior to this at UNSW, he worked on several devices and materials systems, including superconductors, semiconductors, qubits, microwave resonators, Josephson junctions, and SQUIDs. His focus is on process development, process improvement, and scale-up.
Dr Gloria Qiu
Senior Process Engineer
Gloria received her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Houston, USA. Her expertise is in magnetic thin film deposition and nanostructure patterning for bit-patterned media application. She has also worked extensively on magnetic biosensors. As Senior Process Engineer, Gloria is responsible for the deposition and dry etching tools.
Derui Yin
Senior Process Engineer
Derui Yin is a Senior Process Engineer specialising in packaging at the University of Sydney. With extensive experience in the semiconductor industry and a Master's degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, he brings advanced knowledge in 2.5D, 3D-IC, and wafer-level packaging. His expertise includes managing packaging capabilities, providing technical support to researchers, and ensuring proper facility maintenance.
Lawrence Farrar
Process Engineer: Metrology and Characterisation
Lawrence is a process engineer specialising in metrology and characterisation. He is an experienced electron microscopist and has expertise in a variety of equipment and techniques from his PhD research at RMIT University. Lawrence’s focus is on characterisation utilising the suite of metrology equipment in the RPF.
Desmond Lum
Process Engineer: Advanced FBG Facility
Desmond is a Process Engineer at the Advanced FBG Facility. He holds a Physics degree from Macquarie University, where he specialised in photonics, fibre optics, and communications. Desmond brings experience from his previous role as a Senior New Product Introduction Engineer at Baraja, where he developed expertise in Design for Manufacturability, ERP system management and pilot manufacturing.
Jayanthi Ramiah
Process Engineer: Wet Process
Jay holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Sydney and has a robust background in both Semiconductor and Quantum device fabrication. She brings valuable experience from A-STAR (Singapore) and UNSW’s Silicon Quantum Computing.
Steve Moody
Senior Technical Officer: Characterisation
Steve's expertise is in characterisation, having come to us from a role with Microscopy Australia. As Senior Technical Officer: Characterisation, he is particularly focused ion beam (cross-sectioning, manipulation, lift-out) and multi-beam nanofabrication.
Justin Digweed
Technical Officer: Fibre Fabrication
Justin manages the polymer optical fibre draw facilty. Justin's experience has been gained from manufacturing Specialty Optical Fibres at the University of Southampton from 1989 until 1994 when he came to Australia to help set up the Optical Fibre Technology Centre at Sydney University. His background covers MCVD systems, equipment support and high volume electronics manufacturing in a mass production environment in Asia.
Angela Tanesha
Technical Officer: Micro and Nanofabrication
Angela is a Technical Officer specialising in Micro and Nanofabrication. She holds a Master of Science in Physics from the University of Melbourne and has prior experience at Archer Materials. Angela has expertise in device fabrication, milling, and characterisation, with proficiency in advanced techniques such as Electron Beam and UV Lithography, etching, and SEM, HIM, and AFM operation. She also has programming skills in Python and MATLAB.
Selvaraj Nagarajan
Senior Equipment Engineer
Raj has significant equipment maintenance and installation experience gained across semiconductor research and manufacturing industries. He has a proven track record of providing equipment and process engineering support to enhance best outcomes for organisations and groups. Recent roles at Microsoft Quantum involved contributing to and managing the day-to-day Microsoft cleanroom equipment operations and improvements projects.
Saw Saw Nyi Nyi Latt
Cleanroom Equipment Officer
Saw is a Cleanroom Equipment Officer responsible for process tools and equipment maintenance at ANFF-NSW University of Sydney. He worked at A*STAR, Singapore’s leading research facility for more than 7 years supporting the installation and maintenance of SPTS’s DRIE and PECVD tools.