Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Theses recipients announced

Edition 18 2023

Seventy-two UNSW PhD candidates have been recognised for their high-quality PhD theses.

To receive this award, candidates must produce a thesis that requires only minimal corrections, received outstanding and/or excellent levels of achievement for all examination criteria, and in the opinion of both examiners is in the top 10 per cent of PhD theses they have examined. Examiners are external to the University and are leaders in their fields.

“Our PhD candidates are undertaking innovative research across the entire breadth of UNSW’s disciplinary areas and are a vital part of our research efforts,” said Professor Jonathan Morris, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research Training and Dean of Graduate Research.

“These awards recognise the outstanding theses produced in the last year and highlight the high-quality research our candidates are carrying out across a wide range of fields.”

The awards are listed below by Faculty. Further details about this award have been published on the HDR Hub.

Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture

Name	Thesis title
Costanza Bergo	Atlas of Denial: Australian Landscape and the Settler-Colonial Structure of Feeling
Max Bledstein	Shocking Exchange: The Iranian Horror Film
Mara Davis	Never Been Better: Australian Musical Theatre and the National Imaginary, 2008–2017
Sheridan Dudley	Politicians as policy makers in large-scale education system reform: The development of Local Schools, Local Decisions in NSW
Nathan Jackson	Persona Play in Videogame Livestreaming: An Ethnography of Performance on Twitch
Luke Robinson	Facing erasure: the disappearing faces of 1940s Hollywood gothic cinema
Anne-Marie Schwirtlich	Widows and the Raj: British Women Widowed in India, 1860–1900

UNSW Business School

Name	Thesis title
Fabian Dienemann	Essays in Asset Pricing and Microstructure of Fixed Income Markets

Faculty of Engineering

Name	Thesis title
Sumaiya Afroz	Shrinkage, cracking and self-healing in low carbon cement concrete
Yoann Buratti	Machine learning for advanced characterisation of silicon solar cells
Xingxing Chen	Flow Physics in 3D Bio-printed Droplets
Hsu-Kang Dow	Memory Safety Acceleration on RISC-V for C Programming Language
Pooja Gupta	Autonomy, Efficiency, Privacy and Traceability in Blockchain-enabled IoT Data Marketplace
Mark Helou	Optimisation and Characterisation of Lattice Structures for Functional Requirements
Philippa Higgins	Remote tree-ring proxies: methods, opportunities, and limitations for reconstructing South Pacific climate
Trung Thien Hoang	Shape Programmable and Multifunctional Soft Textile Muscles for Robotics and Wearable Applications
Woojeong Kim	On designing pea/whey protein complexes for microencapsulation of lipophilic bioactive compounds
Zakhar Lanetc	Hybrid numerical methods for multiphysics simulation of flow in coal
Joshua Leverett	Structure-Activity Relationships of Single Atom Catalysts for the Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Value Added Products
Qingya Li	A Framework for Size-dependent Structural Analysis of Smart Micro/nanoplates
Yun Li	Generalization and Specialization in Zero-Shot Learning
Lakshminarayanan Mohana Kumar	Fibre orientation and distribution in steel fibre reinforced concrete
Michael Moschetti	Refractory High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Nuclear Applications
Phuoc Thien Phan	Bio-Inspired Soft Artificial Muscles for Robotic and Healthcare Applications
Guntur Dharma Putra	Blockchain-based Trust and Reputation Management for Securing IoT
Junma Tang	Mechanochemical application of liquid metals
Constantine Tsounis	Designing Metal/Carbon Hybrid Electrocatalysts for the Hydrogen and Oxygen Evolution Reactions
Yifang Wang	Synthesis of molybdenum-based two-dimensional materials with liquid metal
Zilong Wu	Photo-RAFT Polymerization Regulated by NIR Light for Well-Defined Polymer Synthesis
Zhouzun Xie	Multi-resolution modelling of polydisperse particulate flow in solid-liquid systems
Ho Lung Yip	Hydrogen Jet Combustion in Engine-relevant Conditions
Zhiheng Zhang	The Application of Photomediated RAFT Polymerisation in 3D Printing
Shujie Zhou	Optimizing Cu2ZnSnS4 Based Photocathodes for Photoelectrocatalytic Reactions

Faculty of Law & Justice

Name	Thesis title
Allison Henry	Regulatory responses to addressing and preventing sexual assault and harassment in Australian university settings
Yuanjun Zeng	Participation of Adult Sexual Assault Victims in the Criminal Justice Process: A Comparative Analysis of Approaches in Australia and China

Faculty of Medicine & Health

Name	Thesis title
Hafiz Afzal	Sensory mechanisms involved in obtaining frictional information for perception and grip force adjustment during object manipulation
Soumyadeep Bhaumik	Addressing the burden of snakebite: analysing policy prioritisation, evaluating health systems, and fostering research on clinical outcomes for effective and safe treatment
Alexander Corri	Elucidating the Dormant Cancer Cell Niche in Bone using Single-Cell Transcriptomics
Christina Fichter	Development of Novel Transient Delivery Systems for Gene Therapy
Clarissa Gok	Assessing and addressing social well-being and social anxiety among adolescents and young adults with cancer in Australia
Rajendra Gyawali	Optimising The Appropriateness Of Diabetic Eyecare Delivery In Australia
S. M. Hosen	Targeting the Urokinase Plasminogen Activator System Combined with Chemotherapy – a Potentially Novel Therapeutic Approach for Pancreatic Cancer
Mary Revelas	The Genetic and Epigenetic Factors of Exceptional Longevity
Emalie Rosewarne	Evaluations of nutrition policy and advocacy to improve the food environment in Australia
Erin Sparrow	Monoclonal antibodies and vaccines against infectious diseases: Influenza, rabies and respiratory syncytial virus
Melinda Toomey	iCareTrack: Improving the Appropriateness of Australian Glaucoma Eyecare Delivery (ImAAGED)
Nelson Wang	Cardiovascular prevention through improved blood pressure and cholesterol lowering
Shiying Zheng	Antibody-Mediated Thrombocytopenias: Novel Mechanisms and Potential Treatment

Faculty of Science

Name	Thesis title
Hudson Coates	Substrate-induced activation of the rate-limiting cholesterol synthesis enzyme squalene monooxygenase
Matthew Donnelly	Electron Tunnelling in Atomically Precise 3D Silicon Nanostructures
Aaron Eger	Restoring and valuing global kelp forest ecosystems
Tobias Foller	Role of In-plane Pores and Graphitic Domains in Mass Transport through Graphene Oxide Membranes
Jordan Gacutan	Using citizen science data to inform marine debris research, management and policy at multiple scales
Karthik Gopi	Development of a scientifically robust analytical tool for determining seafood provenance based on isotopic and elemental fingerprinting
Jennifer Hudson	Molecular interactions between pathogenic marine Bacteroidota and their macroalgal host
Zeb Krix	Controlling interaction effects in artificial crystals
Jiasui Li	Microbial symbiosis and host disease resistance in marine macroalgae
Maxwell Moyle	Microstructural Investigations of 17-4 PH Stainless Steel Fabricated via Laser Powder Bed Fusion
Domenic Pace	Mechanisms in Iodine Catalysis and the Design of New Advanced Photoactive Materials
Pietro Pollo	Understanding and challenging stereotypical sex differences in reproductive behaviours
Joseph Rowlands	The Development of a Scalable Atomic Quantum Integrated Circuit
Wenting Chen	Investigating empathy in hoarding and its potential as a psychosocial treatment target
Alan Stoneham	AC(sigma)-operators and Functions of Bounded Variation
Zhen Su	Rational Design of Electrodes and Electrolytes for High-Performance Proton Batteries
Vitor Vieira Rielli	Processing-Structure-Property Relationships in Directly Aged Alloy 718
James Watson	Methane And Other Unlikely Ligands: An NMR Study Of Alkane Sigma Complexes
Laura Wimberger	Visible light-induced pH control and its applications

UNSW Canberra

Name	Thesis title
Ibrahim Al-Ani	High-Q Resonant Modes for Light-Matter Interaction Enhancement in Emerging Semiconductor Materials
Tarun Kumer Biswas	Modeling and Solving Influence Maximization Problems in Social Networks
Michaela Cully-Hugill	Explicit estimates for the distribution of primes
Wan Nur Atikah Haji Wan Nafi	Controlled precipitation and bubble sizes in a bubble column evaporator
Paulo Vasconcelos	High-Speed Fluid-Structure Interactions on a Compliant Panel