These eight young rising stars are poised to make their mark

These eight young rising stars of Australian research are leading the next generation of academics whose work will benefit the nation.

These eight young rising stars are leading the next generation of Australian research.

We have selected eight “rising stars” of Australian research, young researchers whose papers so far put them in the vanguard of the coming generation of academics who will expand our knowledge and build a better Australia.

These eight have been chosen because, in their discipline, they stand out among their peers.

They have the highest annualised H-index in their discipline for researchers in the early stage of their careers which we define as less than five years since the first citation of their work.

The H-index is a widely used measure of the volume and quality of a researcher’s work and, by annualising it, that is dividing by the number of years a researcher has been active, it helps correct for differences due to career length and field.

Here are the great eight.

Oliver Eales

Mohd Sadiq

Oliver Eales University of Melbourne

Discipline: Life Sciences & Earth Sciences

Oliver Eales is a statistician and mathematical biologist at the University of Melbourne where he holds a research fellowship. He has published extensively on the transmission of Covid-19 and other viruses and describes his interests as including computational modelling of viral evolution and analysing competing strains.

Mohd Sadiq Australian Catholic University

Discipline: Business, Economics & Management

Mohd Sadiq’s research specialty is green marketing and services marketing, and his research ranges over tourism, online services, and green washing, that is deceptive claims that a good or service has environmental benefits, when it does not. Dr Sadiq is a sessional lecturer at the Australian Catholic University’s Peter Faber Business School.

Genevieve Dammery

Milad Baghalzadeh Shishehgarkhaneh

Genevieve Dammery Macquarie University

Discipline: Health & Medical Sciences

Genevieve Dammery is a 2023 Ramsay Scholar who this year completed a masters degree on preventing violence against women and girls at Cambridge University. She has worked at Macquarie University’s Australian Institute of Health Innovation since 2021 and has a strong publication record over a wide range of primary care and public health topics.

Milad Baghalzadeh Shishehgarkhaneh Monash University

Discipline: Engineering & Computer Science

Milad Baghalzadeh Shishehgarkhaneh is a PhD student in civil engineering at Monash University who has published extensively on ways to innovate in construction management. He has investigated use of AI to reduce risk in the construction supply chain, and the use of AI and blockchain technology to increase resilience in construction projects.

Maral Ansari

Kunsheng Hu

Maral Ansari CSIRO

Discipline: Physics & Mathematics

Maral Ansari is a CSIRO research engineer working on antenna and receiver systems for astronomy and space science applications. She holds a doctorate from the University of Technology Sydney and has an extensive record of published research.

Kunsheng Hu University of Adelaide

Discipline: Chemical & Material Sciences

Kunsheng Hu holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Adelaide and his research includes papers on pollution caused by degradation of microplastics. He is currently a laboratory manager at the University of Adelaide.

Benjamin Wood

Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos

Benjamin Wood Deakin University

Discipline: Social Sciences

Benjamin Wood is a research fellow at Deakin University’s Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition whose work examines the political economy of food systems and ways in which large corporate and financial actors adversely influence health and equity. Recent work includes investigation of the ultra-processed food industry.

Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos Macquarie University

Discipline: Humanities, Literature & Arts

Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos teaches and researches multiplatform journalism at Macquarie University and has published extensively on media, disinformation and fake news, the impact of AI, and data journalism. He has also worked professionally as a journalist.