Physics Grand Challenges

A new era of Physics

The Physics Foundation was established to drive excellence in Physics and more broadly interdisciplinary science research and teaching.

In 2019, a new initiative was conceived by then Head of School, Professor Celine Boehm, to fund ground-breaking research projects – The Physics Foundation Grand Challenges.

Each year we invite Academics from the School of Physics to pitch a unique and unconventional concept that must include a team of non-physics researchers and students to a panel of experts. We typically select two teams to receive $250,000 each.

2022 Grand Challenge Winners

This year, the submissions were of such high calibre we selected two winning teams and provided seed funding of $50,000 to another team. Here are the winning teams.

From left to right: Mr Michael Winternitz (Foundation President and panellist), Mr James Kirby (Deputy President and panellist), Dr Feng Li (accepting the award on behalf of Dr Rongken Zheng), Assoc Prof Stephano Palomba, Dr Alessandro Tuniz (on behalf of Dr Sahand Mahmoodian), Mr Adam Lister (panellist), Dr David Mills (panellist).

Bionic Limbs with ‘Feeling’: A Revolutionary Bi-directional Nerve Interface

Led by Associate Professor Stefano Palomba – Winner: $250,000.

More than one billion people worldwide are affected by a peripheral nervous system related disability, like a nerve injury or the absence of a limb or an organ.

Associate Professor Stefano Palomba aims to create bionic technology to not just allow people with disability to regain control over affected parts of their body but to actually ‘feel’ external sensory input.

State-of-the-art X-ray Imaging for higher resolution, lower radiation and reduced costs

Led by Professor Rongken Zheng – Winner: $250,000.

X-ray imaging has been extensively used in medical diagnosis and nondestructive inspection. Low-dose and high-sensitivity X-ray imaging is in high demand to reduce the negative health effects and for wider applications.

Professor Rongkun Zheng’s team will leverage their patented technology to drastically increase the sensitivity and accuracy in imaging at significantly lower radiation dosages while being of much less cost than current MRI technology.

Quantum Many-body Techniques for Machine Learning

Led by Dr Sahand Mahmoodian –$50,000 Seed Funding

Major recent advances in science and industry have resulted from modern machine learning methods, which can accurately classify complex patterns in the world around us.

Dr Sahand Mahmoodian’s team will develop powerful and efficient new machine learning methods to decipher complex patterns that are often hard to distinguish - such as the difference between the brain wave patterns of someone having a seizure versus simply having their eyes closed. 

Read more about these amazing projects here.

An Eye in the Sky: Remote Sensing for Advanced Ecosystem Monitoring

Function Follows Form: Next Generation Bioscaffolds

This project aims to build a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and subsequently a satellite for advanced monitoring ecological health, building bushfire resilience and better understanding the effects of bushfires.

Read more about this research here.

This project will develop and demonstrate novel bioscaffolds suitable for synthetic blood vessels, and cardiac tissue.

 

Read more about this research here. 

Nanoscale brain navigation for targeted drug delivery 

Positronium: the key for cancer annihilation

This project seeks to design nanoscale robots which could deliver drugs to the distinct regions of the brain where they are needed, transforming treatments and patient outcomes.

Learn more about this project here.

The aim of this project is to develop a novel anti-matter marker, positronium, with quantum sensitivity and specificity for early cancer diagnosis, a medical technology not previously recognised. 

Learn more about this project here.

Using big data to stamp out slavery in the supply chain

Mission to Alpha Centauri

 

This project seeks to design nanoscale robots which could deliver drugs to the distinct regions of the brain where they are needed, transforming treatments and patient outcomes.

Learn more about this project here.

The aim of this project is to develop a novel anti-matter marker, positronium, with quantum sensitivity and specificity for early cancer diagnosis, a medical technology not previously recognised. 

Learn more about this project here.

Grand challenges

AI is used in many areas of modern physics, but physics is also shedding new light on the physical nature of neuro-inspired intelligence.

Representative research themes: astronomy, quantum physics, particle physics, medical physics, complex systems, neural dynamics

What is dark matter? What about dark energy? And how does space emerge? How do we reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity? How do galaxies, stars and planets form? These questions, and more, still remain waiting to be answered. 

Representative research themes: astronomy, particle physics, space physics, cosmology, quantum physics

New phenomena are found on the nanoscale and things we thought we knew can behave in unpredictable ways. Quantum effects, such as superposition and entanglement, offer the potential of unprecedented information processing, but how can we control fragile quantum states to achieve this?

Representative research themes: nanoscience, quantum physics, photonics, materials physics

Smart materials, devices and renewable energy technologies, underpinned by physics, offer the best solution to the growing climate change problems we face. Physics-based analytical techniques are also used to quantify environmental impacts of our activities.

Representative research themes: materials physics, photonics, space physics, sustainability analysis

In the era of social media, post-truth can propagate out of control, how do we raise the visibility and credibility of science and scientists? What strategies are most effective in abolishing misinformation and disrupting disinformation? How can we convincingly communicate physics to reverse the retreat from reason?

Representative research themes: physics communication, physics education

Physics has always played a pivotal role in medicine and biology – from the discovery of the DNA double helix structure to the invention of MRI. Now, new insights are emerging into the inner workings of the human brain – possibly the most complex structure in the universe.

Representative research themes: biological physics, neurophysics, medical physics, photonics, imaging