ELECTRICAL STIMULATION ON ORGANIC CONDUCTORS
With
Distinguished Professor Gordon Wallace AO,
Executive Research Director
Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI)
University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia | November 2025
Professor Gordon Wallace AO is the Founder and Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) at the University of Wollongong and Founding Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) Materials Node. He was previously the Executive Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES).
He was awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship in Nanobionics in 2011, appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his commitment to research collaboration and innovation in 2017, elected as a Fellow, Royal Society of NSW in 2017, and appointed to Prime Ministers Knowledge Nation 100 in 2015. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2022.
Over his career, Professor Wallace has attracted over $100M in competitive funding and his team was awarded an ARC Centre ($7.3M over 5 years) in 2003, which was subsequently upgraded in 2005 to an ARC Centre of Excellence ($14M over 5 years). A 3-year extension ($7.5M) of this Centre was awarded in 2010.
In 2014 he led a team successful in attracting a further 7 years ($25M) funding to ACES. This core funding has been supplemented by an ARC Federation Fellowship and Laureate Fellowship, ARC and NHMRC project grants, CRC projects (CRC Polymer a,CRC Hearing and Marine Bioproducts CRC), funding from the Defence Advanced Research Program Agency (USA), CSIRO, DSTO, the NSW Government and recently MTP Connect and ARENA.
In 2009, he was instrumental in attracting $50M in Federal Government funding to establish a Materials Processing and Device Fabrication Facility at UOW. To date, he is the Chief Scientist on the ($35M) BIENCO project and belongs on the Executive Committee Board alongside BIENCO CEO Danielle Fisher and Project Lead Gerard Sutton.
Since 2023, Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) has also been a crucial member of BIENCO, a world-first consortium of clinical practitioners, researchers and bioengineers addressing the global challenge of corneal blindness. He has published in excess of 1,200 refereed journal publications that have attracted more than 72,000 citations with an H-index of 123 (Scopus).He is named as a co-inventor on more than 60 patents. He is the lead author on three monographs entitled “Organic Bionics” (Wiley- VCH 2012), “Intelligent Polymer Systems” and “3D Bioprinting: Printing Parts for Bodies” (2014) and has also authored an additional 38 book chapters.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0381-7273
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Paramedics in the Community
Dr Brendan Shannon is a registered paramedic and Head of Postgraduate Programs and Deputy Head of Department of Paramedicine at Monash University.
Brendan has a keen research interest in alternative care pathways, non-transport, referral services, paramedic practitioners and community paramedicine. His Doctoral research focused on investigating the experiences of health services when implementing alternative care pathways.
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Newborn screening for congenital hypothyroidism
Assoc Prof Jack is passionate about the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents, with diverse research areas including the impacts of family friendly workplace initiatives, screening and management of thyroid disorders in infants and children. She supports her First Nations colleagues on Indigenous-led research projects funded by the Medical Research Future Fund, aiming to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of First Nations Children. Through her clinical and academic roles, Assoc Prof Jack hopes to make a positive difference to the health and well-being of children and their families.
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Touched by bowel cancer and chasing science outcomes
Dr Josephine Wright is a Senior Research Fellow in the Gut Cancer group. She has been developing a translational network of labs, hospitals and clinics to enable validation of new approaches to prevent and treat colorectal and gastric cancer. Her key focus is studying human tumour organoids to better personalise therapy in cancer.
