UQ DVCRI and experts receive prestigious fellowships

Five University of Queensland experts have been named 2025 Fellows of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), including the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation Professor Sue Harrison. 

They are among only 35 leaders elected nationally for world-class achievements in the fields of applied science and engineering to solve challenges facing society.  

2025 ATSE Fellows from UQ: 

• Professor Sue Harrison – leading in sustainable mineral processing, integrating microbiology with chemical engineering to transform mine waste into valuable resources, as well as holding academic leadership roles and driving impact across industry and research. 

• Dr Bruce Leslie – pioneering Australia’s first solar thermal power plant with aims to capture and store energy from the sun in daylight hours for use at night.  

• Professor Cori Anne Stewart – founding Australia’s first independent not-for-profit tech commercialisation centre, ARM Hub, which has helped hundreds of companies scale up with robotics, AI, and advanced manufacturing. 

• Kimberley Swords – leading environmental protection and heritage conservation efforts by negotiating international acceptance of Queensland’s and Australia’s work to protect the Great Barrier Reef and conceptualising the 2015 Long Term Sustainability Plan.   

• Suzanne Thompson - advocating for cultural knowledge-sharing, including recognition of Indigenous intellectual knowledge by industry, and working in key national roles across tourism, decarbonisation, and the native foods sector. 

The Fellows join more than 900 of the Academy’s leading engineers and applied scientists from across academia, industry, government, and research.