Sam (Xianjue) Chen received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He was awarded a PhD in Chemistry in 2014 from the University of Western Australia (UWA) followed by a postdoctoral experience at Flinders University with Prof Colin L. Raston AO. From 2015, he worked as a Research Fellow with Prof Rodney S. Ruoff at the Institute of Basic Science (IBS) Center for Multi-dimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM) at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). Upon receiving the ARC DECRA fellowship, he joined the School of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2017, working with Prof. Chuan Zhao while establishing his research group focusing on 'artificial materials' through developing new synthesis strategies and exploring applications of materials. In 2021, Dr Chen joined the University of Newcastle. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in chemistry and a TRaCE Fellow.

Research Project: Carbon capture and conversion

Chengyi completed his Bachelor's degree in a joint program between Beijing University of Chemical Technology and the University of Birmingham, where he cultivated a strong foundation in the field of nanomaterials and electrochemistry. Pursuing his Master's at Imperial College London, he developed a keen interest in the synthesis of carbon nanomaterials ('buckypaper'), along with their related applications in in-situ characterisation, particularly in EPR-electrochemistry. 

Research Project: Fullerene-based artificial carbon materials

Sadeepa completed his Bachelor's degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, where he performed modeling the effect of the surface topology of the electrodes on the EDL capacitance. Then he pursued a Master's degree at the same university, working on synthesizing graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) for supercapacitor applications and investigating the structure, property, and performance relationship of GO and RGO through physical and electrochemical characterizations.

Research Project: Diamane and diamond synthesis

Research Project: Diamane and diamond synthesis

Research Project : Novel carbon architectures for energy storage

Research Project: Spectroscopic investigation of quantum optical emitters in diamane.

Research Project: Carbon materials for energy applications

Research Project: Carbon capture; Microfluidics 

Research Project: New carbon architectures; Carbon upcycling

Research Project: New carbon architectures; Chemical fragmentation of biochar

Research Project: Fullerene-based artificial materials

PhD thesis: Graphene-based membrane for water filtration and separation (2022)

Honours thesis: Metal-catalysed formation of atomically-thin carbon films (2020)

Honours thesis: Microwave shock exfoliation of graphene fluoride for potassium-ion batteries (2019)

Thesis: New Diamond Growth Methods

Research Interest: fullerenes, graphene, two-dimensional materials