IPRI Director honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award

The Director of UOW’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute and Executive Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, Professor Gordon Wallace, has been awarded the 2009 Smart Structures and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award.

Announcement of the award was made in the United States this week at the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials/Nondestructive Evaluation symposium. The annual event was held this week in San Diego, California.

As the symposium clashed with the official opening this week of the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials which part houses Professor Wallace’s flagship research area (see http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW056037.html), he was unable to travel to the US to receive his award.

Dr Scott McGovern travelled to the conference and accepted the award on Professor Wallace’s behalf and he also gave a talk on electroactive polymer actuators and devices.

Professor Wallace’s research interests include organic conductors, nanomaterials and electrochemical probe methods of analysis and the use of these in the development of intelligent polymer systems. A current focus involves the use of these tools and materials in developing biocommunications from the molecular to skeletal domains in order to improve human performance via medical bionics.

Professor Wallace was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2003 and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2007. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK) and of a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). He received the inaugural Polymer Science and Technology award from the RACI in 1992, an ETS Walton Fellowship by the Science Foundation Ireland in 2003, and the RACI Stokes Medal for research in Electrochemistry in 2004.

He completed undergraduate and PhD degrees at Deakin University and was awarded a DSc from Deakin University in 2000. He has published more than 450 refereed publications and a monograph (3rd Edition published in 2009) on Conductive Electroactive Polymers: Intelligent Polymer System, and has supervised 55 PhD students to completion.

IPRI is renowned for expertise in the electrochemistry of organic conductors; especially when those conductors are used in the applications of artificial muscles, photovoltaics, batteries, and biomedical applications.

The ARC Centre of Excellence in Electromaterials Science (ACES) was established at IPRI with partners from Monash University, the Bionic Ear Institute, St Vincent’s Health and the NSW Department of State and Regional Development.

In addition to the ACES core projects of synthesis, characterisation and modelling of new electromaterials, energy conversion, energy storage, ethics and bionics, IPRI has related research activities supported by CRC Polymers, Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), University of South Australia, and several commercial partners. IPRI has developed global linkages with research institutions in the USA, Japan, Korea, China, Ireland and the United Kingdom, with a growing international reputation and important industry partnerships.

SPIE is the international optics and photonics society, founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. Serving more than 188,000 constituents from 138 countries, the society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange, continuing education, publications, patent precedent, and career and professional growth.

SPIE annually organises and sponsors about 25 major technical forums, exhibitions, and education programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. In 2008, the society provided $1.9 million for scholarships, grants, and other activities supporting research and education around the world. For more information, visit SPIE.org

Last reviewed: 12 March, 2009