Fellowships bestowed for research excellence

Professor Shizhang Qiao FTSE FAA, from the School of Chemical Engineering, who is Chair of Nanotechnology and Director, Centre for Materials in Energy and Catalysis, and Professor Peng Shi FTSE, from the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, have been awarded Fellowships from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).

The prestigious awards are in recognition of their contributions in their chosen fields.

Professor Qiao’s research expertise is in nanostructured materials for new energy technologies: electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, batteries and fuel cells.

He was the 2021 recipient of the South Australian Scientist of the Year for his work in the areas of  energy conversion and storage technology and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2023.

Professor Qiao is one of the most cited Australian researchers, his work receiving more than 100,000 citations by his peers. In July 2025, the Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Battery Recycling was official launched, headed by Professor Qiao. The Centre, which is a collaboration between nine organisations, including government, academia and industry, aims to close the gap in sustainable lithium-ion battery waste management by providing industry-led recycling solutions and training a skilled workforce to support Australia’s circular economy.

Over a 30-year career, Professor Shi has made sophisticated contributions in the fields of automation and control systems. He has collaborated with his peers to build up significant fundamental pillars of advanced control theory and demonstrated their feasibility in numerous interdisciplinary applications to cyber-physical systems, human-machine collaboration, network systems, autonomous and robotic systems, and artificial intelligent systems.

The impact of Professor Shi’s work is reflected in his status as a Highly Cited Researcher in both engineering and computer science since 2014.

Professor Qiao and Professor Shi are the only researchers in South Australia to be recognised in the announcement of 35 new Fellowships awarded by the ATSE.