December 4, 2020

Professor Shujun Zhang and Professor Willy Susilo named as IEEE fellows

Honours conferred for outstanding records of accomplishment in their fields

Two University of Wollongong (UOW) academics have been made Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for their research work.

Professor Shujun Zhang from the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, was recognised for his contributions to the development of advanced piezoelectrics for transducers. These will deeply impact our everyday lives, with applications in areas including medical imaging ultrasonics and acoustic transducers and sensors for health, safety and the sustainable development of society.

Senior Professor Willy Susilo, Head of the School of Computing and Information Technology and inaugural Director of the Institute of Cybersecurity and Cryptology, was recognised for his contributions to cloud computing security.

The title of IEEE Fellow is conferred upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest and is recognised by the technical community as a prestigious honour and an important career achievement.

The IEEE has more than 400,000 members in 160 countries, and is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics.

Professor Shujun Zhang

Professor Zhang’s work is focused on the field of materials science and engineering. This includes research into dielectric, piezoelectric, ferroelectric and electrocaloric materials in different forms such as ceramics, textured ceramics, crystals, composites, polymers, and thick film.

His current research focuses on the material design-fabrication-microstructure-property relationship of electronic materials for piezoelectric sensor, acoustic transducer and energy storage/harvesting applications.

Professor Zhang is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (2019) and was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow from 2015 to 2019.

The Australian’s ‘Research’ magazine named him as the Australian Field Leader in Ceramic Engineering in (2019), and the American Ceramic Society awarded him the Ross Coffin Purdy Award in 2020 for “the most valuable contribution to ceramic technical literature”.

Professor Zhang is the associate editor-in-chief of IEEE Transaction on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectric and Frequency Control, section editor-in-chief of MDPI’s Crystals, and an associate editor of Science Bulletin, Journal of the American Ceramics Society and Journal of Electronic Materials.

Professor Zhang holds 10 US patents and has co-authored more than 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Since joining UOW in 2015, he has published more than 130 papers including 10 papers in Science, Nature and their sister journals.

Senior Professor Willy Susilo

Professor Susilo is internationally recognised as a research leader in cryptography and cyber security, and has published more than 500 research papers in journals and conference proceedings in cryptography and network security.

He is editor-in-chief of Elsevier’s Computers Standards and Interfaces and MDPI’s Information and has served as an associate editor on IEEE Transactions in Information Forensics and Computing, and an associate editor on IEEE Transactions in Dependable and Secure Computing.

Professor Susilo has actively engaged with industry and the research community. He has worked closely with organisations including the Australian Signal Directorate (ASD), the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, NSW Cyber Security Innovation Node, the Australian Cyber Security Growth Network (AustCyber) and Data61 to improve and extend Australia’s cyber security capabilities.

Professor Susilo’s work is cited in 44 international patents, including patents from high-profile companies like Microsoft, IBM, Samsung, Nokia, Panasonic, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.

In 2019, The Australian’s ‘Research’ magazine named Professor Susilo “Australian Field Leader in Computer Science and Cryptography”. For his research excellence, UOW gave him the Vice-Chancellor’s “Researcher of the Year” Award in 2016.

Professor Susilo has successfully supervised 30 PhD and 17 Master’s students to completion, many of whom are now Professors and Postdoctoral Research Fellows in universities and research and development organisations around the world. He was awarded the UOW Vice-Chancellor’s “Award for Excellence in Research Supervision” in 2019.

In 2020, Professor Susilo won the UOW Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Global Strategy for his contribution to the University’s internationalisation and global strategy.