News Archive

Supplied by Elizabeth Hutchinson Executive Officer, Academic Promotions Committee  Human Resources

PROFESSOR

Professor David Barrie, History, School of Humanities

Professor Barrie commenced with the University in 2008.  He has since that time published a sole authored monograph, two co-authored monographs, a co-authored edited collection, five book chapters and nine articles in leading peer reviewed international journals published in America, the UK, France and Australia. The latter include Urban History, Continuity and Change, The British Journal of Criminology, the Journal of British Studies, and Law and History Review .  His first book Police in the Age of Improvement was a major contribution in its field and was awarded the best first book in Scottish history by the Frank Watson book prize international judging committee (2008-09). He has contributed to the History Discipline Group, Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) and by way of service to the University.  As Chief Investigator, he has attracted approximately $430,000 in competitive research grants from the Australian Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the Carnegie Trust (UK). He is currently chief investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on the Scottish Criminal Justice System in the Age of Enlightenment ($155,000).

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Professor Dick Chi Chan, School of Medicine and Pharmacology

Professor Chan commenced with the University in 2002.  He is one of a small group of experts in the analysis of kinetic studies designed to investigate the mechanisms underlying abnormalities of plasma lipid and lipoprotein transport.  Dr Chan's work has led to substantial advances in understanding these disorders and his findings have the potential to translate into new approaches in therapy.  His development of novel stable isotope, biochemical imaging and modelling techniques to investigate lipoprotein metabolism have been widely accepted and are now used by many other research groups.  The extent of his collaboration with both national and international workers reflects his standing as a researcher and his commitment to this area of research.  He teaches laboratory methodologies and provides technical advice and support within the School of Medicine and Pharmacology as well as to members of collaborative research teams.

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Professor Aaron Robotham, Astrophysics, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)

Professor Robotham commenced with the University in October 2011.  His scientific experience has been largely centred around extra-galactic astrophysics, specifically the role that the galaxy group environment (bound structures containing many galaxies) plays in shaping the destiny of galaxy evolution.  He is currently on a UWA UPRF Fellowship which he won in January 2013 and is the science coordinator for the multi-wavelength GAMA survey that is led by Winthrop Professor Simon Driver.  The GAMA survey is a major international collaborative enterprise that is bringing considerable attention and credit to UWA.  He is also prominent in the field of astrostatistics, and is active in promoting exploratory data analysis techniques around the world.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Associate Professor Romit Dasgupta, Asian Studies, School of Social Sciences

Professor Dasgupta's research has focused around the area of gender (specifically masculinity), in Japanese studies and he is recognized as a key researcher on masculinities in Japan.  The Salaryman at Work and Play, written during his PhD fieldwork is amongst the most cited articles in Japanese Studies, the academic journal of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia, and one of the major internationally recognised journals in Japanese Studies.  In addition to his monograph, Re-reading the Salaryman in Japan: Crafting Masculinities (Routledge 2013), he has also been involved in editing two major collaborative volumes.  The first, Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan, published in 2005, was co-edited with Mark McLelland, one of the foremost experts in research on gender and sexuality in Japan.  The second, the recently published co-edited volume, Configurations of Family in Contemporary Japan (2014),  followed on from a 2011 University of Queensland/UWA Bilateral Research Collaboration Award funded project, that he was one of the Chief Investigators for, on changes in family in Japan.  Associate Professor Dasgupta was been on research sabbatical in the first half of 2014, and will be again in the first half of 2015, working on a new area of research looking at interactions between Japan and Turkey . This is part of a larger collaborative project,  with colleagues from Turkey, Japan, and Australia, re-examining notions of "Asia" and "Asian Studies" from the perspective of the three countries located on the edges of the continent. As part of this project he has  recently received funding from the Asian Studies Association of Australia to organize an international workshop bringing in academics and postgraduate researchers from the three countries at the International Convention of Asian Scholars conference in July 2015.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Professor Robert Cunningham, Law School

Professor Cunningham commenced with the University in 2008.  His area of research is related to Intellectual Property Rights which he has developed through the provision of doctoral research and refereed publications by drawing upon his expertise in the law of intellectual property, international trade law, competition law and open source innovation.   He has developed his research capacity by way of the completion of a monograph (300 pages), Information Environmentalism: A Governance Framework for Intellectual Property Rights, through his  award of a PhD at The Australian National University, and through publications and conference presentations.

Since 2008 he has supervised over ten LLB Honours students at UWA relating to international trade law, corporations law and intellectual property.  He also has a recent LLM (Research) completion, which investigated the interface between copyright and competition law and his continuing to supervise three ongoing PhD students who are exploring issues related to international trade law and intellectual property.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Associate Professor Scott Draper, Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems

Professor Draper commenced with the University in January 2011.  In September 2011 he was appointed to the position of Lloyd's Register Assistant Professor in marine renewable energy which he holds currently.  He has since then broadened out into two new research areas within offshore engineering, namely sediment transport and scour (through involvement in the UWA O-tube project), and metocean engineering.  His research on marine renewable energy has been reported widely in the United Kingdom in the free press such as The Guardian and Independent Today and has been discussed in the Scottish Parliament.  He has expanded his research in marine energy through collaborations with colleagues in the United Kingdom at The University of Oxford, The University of Manchester, and Imperial College, and The University of Otago, New Zealand together with industry partners both within Australia and the United Kingdom. The UWA O-tube project has received five industry and international awards and Professor Draper was invited to present as a keynote speaker at the 2014 International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geomechanics outlining some of the work undertaken on this project.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Associate Professor Cyril Grueter, School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology

Professor Grueter commenced with the University in 2012.  His primary research interests include the evolution of primate sociality with particular interest around the evolution of meta-group social organisation which describes cases relating to individuals of different social units and how they interact and collaborate to varying degrees, and in some cases form higher level groupings such as multilevel societies.  With future research objectives in mind, he plans to build on his findings by way of collaborative research with Zhengzhou University, China, and the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.  He has given lectures at  the University of Zurich, Switzerland, as well as the National University of Rwanda and Leipzig University.  Travel overseas often consists of time consuming field work in remote foreign locations.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Associate Professor Etienne Laliberte, School of Plant Biology

Professor Laliberte commenced with the University in 2010. His research as a Plant Ecologist is field-based and his strongest contributions have been in biodiversity within local communities, especially functional diversity, and species turnover among communities. Since joining UWA, he has established a solid national and international reputation as a Plant Ecologist. Although his position has been primarily research focused, he has played a significant role in undergraduate teaching and postgraduate supervision. As the holder of an ARC Discovery Early-Career Researcher Award, he has presented to DECRA applicants as part of grant writing workshops organised by Research Services as well as acting as a mentor to other Early Career Researchers.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Associate Professor Chunbo Ma, Economics, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Professor Ma commenced with the University in 2009.  His area of research is energy economics and energy development in Australia.  He established himself as a high performing Early Career Researcher within the School which resulted in him being awarded a DECRA in 2013.  He has been in active research collaboration within Australia via The Australian National University and UWA, The University of Michigan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, and the North China Electric Power University.  He was nominated for the 2013 Australia-China Emerging Future Leaders in Low Emissions Coal Technology Fellowship and was successful in being awarded by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE)., as one of the eight Fellows from various disciplines.  He was also nominated for the Scopus Young Researcher of the Year Award in 2013.