FFS Research Showcase: Register now
Thu 27 July 2023, 2pm-4.30pm AEST, Webinar
Hear from Future Food Systems program and project leads as well as PhDs in this free webinar highlighting FFS-backed collaborations that advance sustainable development in our agrifood sector – from delivering a database of agricultural producers in NSW’s Namoi region, to developing new bio-based technologies that boost yields in popular horticultural crops, to producing ‘chemical fingerprints’ that prove the provenance and nutritional makeup of everything from artichokes to eggs to wine. Register now
‘Automated crop monitoring’ team seeks PhDs
Two doctoral research scholarships are on offer with FFS’s five-year, $6.8M ‘Automated crop monitoring’ project, which seeks to develop a suite of low-cost crop-based sensors for smart indoor farming. Work within a collaborative research group based at WSU’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment and flagship National Vegetable Protected Cropping Centre. Both PhDs are funded by the project partners and FFS. Apply now
FFS visits UNE and Costa’s glasshouse
Future Food Systems headed to Armidale and Falconer, NSW in June, visiting University of New England and Costa Group’s state-of-the-art, 40-plus-hectare tomato-production glasshouse facility. Read more
PhD wanted for FFS ‘Art of grain-drying’ project
Future Food Systems and UNSW Sydney are seeking an exceptional PhD candidate to take up an FFS Industry PhD scholarship and work on an exciting project with Australian health food firm Sanitarium to optimise its cereal grain-drying process. If you have strong mathematical and system design skills, a solid background (H1 equivalent) in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or related fields, and are passionate about driving innovation in the food industry, apply here by 15 September
Sound foundations laid for sustainable construction materials
A UNSW-EcoMag project team is on the way to making circular-economy building materials a commercially viable reality, exploring cost-effective, environmentally friendly ways to combine industrial and agri-food waste with recaptured CO2 to create high-performance, low-carbon plasterboard and cladding. Read more
Meet Jason Scott: Sustainable materials expert
UNSW Associate Professor and Deputy Leader of the Particle and Catalysis Research Group Jason Scott specialises in developing new materials for environmental and sustainability applications. A/Prof. Scott is the project lead on the FFS ‘Circular economy construction materials’ project with SME EcoMag, and one of a team of UNSW engineers who will work with industry partner FP Paradigm on a major FFS-backed initiative to develop eco-friendly F&B packaging. Read more
VIDEO: Namal Jayasuriya, PhD student
Eranda Namal Jayasuriya moved from Sri Lanka to Singapore to Sydney to pursue a passion for computer science. As part of the CRC’s ‘IoT for indoor cropping’ project team, he’s conducting sophisticated image analysis to monitor indoor crops. Watch here
FFS PhDs tour National Vegetable Protected Cropping Centre
FFS staff and Sydney-based PhDs took a day trip to Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus and its state-of-the-art experimental glasshouse for the second quarterly student catch-up of 2023. Read more
Sumitra Saha, PhD: Exploring heat-resistant microbiomes in potato crops
FFS Industry PhD scholar Sumitra Saha turned A-grades in high-school science into a career path that took her from Bangladesh Agricultural University to the Netherlands’ Wageningen U&R and, most recently, to Australia’s Murdoch University, where her doctoral research forms part of the FFS-backed ‘Novel microbiome technologies’ project. Read more