Many of our PhD projects are developed in collaboration with external partners, including CRCs, government agencies, industry and international institutions. This means that students often work with co-supervisors from partner organisations, gain access to real-world field sites and datasets, and contribute to projects that have clear pathways to impact.

We welcome enquiries from prospective PhD and MPhil students who are interested in soil environmental biogeochemistry, soil health and drought resilience, plastics and waste, or related topics. Collaborative scholarships and joint supervision arrangements may be available through programs such as the Soil CRC, Solving Plastic Waste CRC and ACIAR-funded projects. Interested applicants are encouraged to contact the group leader with a brief CV and a short statement of research interests.

1. Upcycling of plastic waste into monomers using catalysts
2. Enhancing closed-loop mechanical recycling of automotive plastic waste through additive engineering
3. Directing the catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of lignocellulosic biocrudes
4. Analysis of biocrudes from the hydrothermal liquefaction of lignocellulosic wastes
5. Particle-scale modelling of new separation technology for sustainable plastics recycling: Fundamentals & novel application
6. Soft plastic waste (polyolefin) valorization through pyrolysis: Chemical reaction kinetic model development to assess correlation between feedstock (material) properties and pyrolytic oil qualities
7. Scenario analysis tool for plastic waste management futures: Systems Dynamics Model
8. Understanding the generation of microplastics by fragmentation of different types of plastics in agricultural soils
9. From pixels to parts per thousand: Robust VNIR–SWIR hyperspectral detection and quantification of soil microplastics