newy.com.au – Six University of Newcastle researchers have secured more than $6.6 million in Australian Research Council fellowships for projects spanning artificial intelligence, health, energy storage and the history of appetite.
The university said the Future Fellowships allocation was its largest by dollar value and matched its highest number of recipients. The national scheme supports mid-career researchers.
Associate Professor Julia Coffey has been awarded about $1.33 million to examine how AI tools that recognise, analyse and modify faces affect young people’s identity, self-expression and everyday lives. The project will investigate the technology’s social and cultural effects, with findings intended to inform discussions about privacy, safety and wellbeing.
A similarly sized grant will allow Associate Professor Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen to examine how understandings of appetite have changed since the end of World War II. Her research will place current debates about appetite and drugs such as Ozempic in the context of changing views of food, health, the body and consumer culture.
Two other projects focus on developing materials for health monitoring and energy storage. Dr Qianqian Shi will investigate advanced nanomaterials for ultra-thin wearable biosensors, aiming to improve their accuracy and reliability while making them comfortable for everyday use. Dr Gurwinder Singh will develop flexible, porous carbon materials, exploring ways to improve their performance for energy storage applications where conductivity, durability and efficiency are important.
The research also extends to how environmental pressures can affect animal reproduction. Dr Aleona Swegen, of the Hunter Medical Research Institute’s Reproductive and Family Health Research Program, has received about $1 million to investigate how heat, ageing and pollution can damage sperm DNA in livestock and influence embryo development and offspring health across generations. The project aims to improve understanding of fertility and inform breeding practices as environmental conditions change.
Dr Mark Gradwell, of HMRI’s Brain Health Research Program, will examine how the brain combines sensory signals from the spinal cord and brainstem to create the sense of touch. His research centres on the thalamus, a brain region that brings together sensory information. Using genetic techniques, imaging and brain circuit mapping, the project aims to explain how touch signals are processed, with possible applications in neural engineering and technologies connecting brains with machines.
The university said the 2026 Future Fellowships round would provide more than $344 million in federal funding for more than 290 projects nationally, making it the largest funding round in the scheme’s history.
