Chief Investigators
Hub Director
Theme Leader
Post-Doctoral Research Associates
Dr LIUYUE CAO
Research Associate, School of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW Sydney
Dr. Liuyue Cao received her B.E. and M.E. in Materials Science and Engineering from Hunan University, China and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from UNSW Sydney in 2018. Her research addresses fundamental scientific and engineering issues of electrochemical systems/device design, development and optimization. She applies both mathematical and experimental techniques to achieve an understanding of the interactions among kinetics, thermodynamics and transport processes at interfaces of electrodes/electrolytes or within electrochemical systems, particularly RFB systems (including vanadium RFBs, all-iron slurry RFBs, semiaqueous RFBs and solar RFBs), lithium-ion batteries, zinc-ion batteries and sodium-sulfur batteries. She has worked closely not only with academic researchers but also with other external stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and job functions. Currently, she manages the development of the vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) under the leadership of Prof. Maria-Skyllas-Kazacos and A/Prof. Chris Menictas.
Dr RAHMAN DAIYAN
Postdoctoral Research Associate, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney
Dr. Rahman Daiyan received a B.E in Mechanical Engineering in 2014 from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and his PhD from UNSW Sydney in 2018. He is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Particles and Catalysis Research Lab of the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW Sydney. His research direction is to explore artificial photosynthesis through the development of inexpensive and scalable nanomaterials and high throughput systems to tackle climate change (Carbon dioxide reduction) as well as to promote alternate fuels (hydrogen production). With skills and experience in material synthesis, electrocatalysis, in-situ characterizations and techno-economic analysis of renewable energy driven energy conversion systems, he also designs and develops electrolyzer prototypes for scale-up in energy conversion reactions such as CO2 reduction, oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction. Daiyan has received excellence awards from both the HKUST and UNSW, including a Postdoctoral Writing Fellowship. Under the leadership of Professor Rose Amal, he manages projects in the Power-to-Gas theme.
Dr XIN GUO
Research Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, UTS
Dr Xin Guo is a Research Fellow at Centre for Clean Energy Technology in the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He received his B. Sc., M. Eng. and Ph.D in 2011, 2014 and 2019, respectively. His research focuses on the synthesis of nanostructured materials, including carbon-based composites, 2D materials and metal oxides, and their applications in the field of energy storage. So far, Xin has published over 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Nat. Cat., Joule, Chem, ACS Nano, Adv. Mater., Adv. Energy Mater., Energy Storage Mater., Small, J. Mater. Chem. A etc. His research works have been cited over 1,200 times in the past 5 years, with an h-index of 20 (Google Scholar). Dr Xin Guo works in theme 1 (Improved Battery Storage Technologies) under the leadership of Professor Guoxiu Wang on new technologies for high energy batteries.
Dr CHAOJIE LI
Senior Research Associate, School of Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications, UNSW Sydney
Dr. Chaojie Li received his B.Eng. in Electronic Science and Technology in 2007 and a M.Eng. in Computer Science in 2011 from Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from RMIT, Melbourne in 2017, where he was a Research Fellow for one and a half years. He was also Senior Algorithm Engineer with Alibaba Group. His current research interests include graph representation learning, distributed optimization and control in smart grids, neural networks, and their applications.
Dr CHOON JIE WONG
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney
Choon Jie Wong received a B.Eng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the Brunei Technological University and UNSW Sydney in 2018 with a University Medal and two Dean's Awards. While awaiting for PhD conferral from UNSW, he is now a postdoctoral fellow in the UNSW Process Control Group. His research direction is to use high-temperature aluminium smelting cells as virtual batteries to smoothen the mismatch between energy supply and demand while enabling flexible manufacturing. With skills and experience in heat and mass transfer in high temperature systems, phase change in aluminium electrolytic cells, and applied estimation and control technologies, Choon Jie continues to work on a project in Theme 4 (Virtual Energy Storage) under the leadership of Prof. Jie Bao, Prof. Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, and Prof. Barry J Welch.
Dr BARAN YILDIZ
Senior Research Associate, School of Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE)
Baran Yildiz completed his PhD in load forecasting & smart home energy systems, M.Sc. in Renewable Energy Engineering, SPREE, UNSW Sydney and B.Sc with Honors in Mechanical Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Baran has led Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and RACE for 2030 projects focusing on the development of integrated smart home energy management systems and integration of distributed energy resources. Baran's research is multi-disciplinary and involves collaboration with leading industry partners of Australia's energy market. Baran's research has been translated into real-world products benefiting energy users and network and his research outputs are featured in reports by Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), Energy Security Board (ESB), CRC and other prime media outlets such as ABC, The Conversation and RenewEconomy. Baran is also the course convener and lecturer of SOLA 4012 Photovoltaic (PV) Systems Design in SPREE. Baran's current Hub research involves investigation of different community battery operation and revenue models in rural NSW as part of Theme 5 (Monitoring, Controlling, Integrating and Optimising Energy Storage).
Dr YUCHEN ZHANG
Research Associate, School of Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications, UNSW Sydney
Yuchen Zhang received his B.Eng in Electrical Engineering (Hons.), B.Com in Finance, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UNSW Sydney, in 2013, 2013, and 2018, respectively. He is now a research associate with UNSW Sydney. His research interests include power system stability analysis, energy storage, condition monitoring, wind farm planning, smart campus, and data-driven applications in energy systems. He was a recipient of Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Under the leadership of Professor Joe Dong, he manages two projects - Advanced health monitoring and analysis methods for battery energy storage systems, and Advanced operation and control methods for coordinating heterogeneous energy storage devices in Theme 5 (Monitoring, Controlling, Integrating and Optimising Energy Storage).
Dr YANG ZHOU
Research Fellow, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW Sydney
Yang Zhou is currently a research fellow under the direction of Prof. Chun-Hui Wang in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia since 2018. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Deakin University in 2018 under the direction of Prof. Tong Lin. His research
interests focus on the preparation and application of multifunctional composites, flexible and structural energy storage and conversion devices. He is working on subtheme 1.2 (Structural and High Energy Density Supercapacitors) under the leadership of Professor Chun-Hui Wang, and will build a demonstration device.