Dynamic Smart Structures and Energy Harvesting Laboratory
Principal Investigator
About Me
Liya Zhao, PhD
Senior Lecturer, ARC DECRA Fellow
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
University of New South Wales
Ainsworth Building J17, 301B
Sydney 2052 NSW Australia
Email: liya.zhao2@unsw.edu.au
Dr Liya Zhao is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney). She is the recipient of the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for 2021-2024. She received her BEng in Civil Engineering from Tongji University in 2009, and her PhD in Structures and Mechanics from Nanyang Technological University Singapore in Dec 2015. After that, she worked as a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. She moved to the University of Technology Sydney in 2017 as a Lecturer and became a Senior Lecturer in 2021. She joined UNSW Sydney as a Senior Lecturer in 2022. Dr Liya Zhao was featured to be in the World’s Top 2% Scientists list for single year 2020, 2021, and 2022 in subject field of Materials, Energy, and Enabling & Strategic Technologies, published by Stanford University.
Her research interests include nonlinear dynamics, kinetic energy harvesting, smart materials and structures, vibration suppression, electromechanical modelling, aerodynamics, and piezoelectric devices.
About me
Education
Dec. 2015 Ph.D. in Structures & Mechanics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
PhD supervisor: Prof Yaowen Yang
Jun. 2009 B.Eng. in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, China
Academic Experience
03/2022-Present Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Australia
07/2021-03/2022 Senior Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
10/2017-06/2021 Lecturer (Assistant Professor), University of Technology Sydney, Australia
02/2016-09/2017 Research Fellow, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
08/2015-01/2016 Project Officer, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
08/2011-05/2015 Research Assistant, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Research Interests
- Nonlinear Dynamics, Vibration Suppression, Metastructures/metamaterials
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Structural/material/geometric/aerodynamic nonlinearity
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Multifunctional metastructure/metamaterial systems for energy harvesting and vibration suppression
- Kinetic Energy Harvesting
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Nonlinear adaptive structures for 1) small-scale wind energy harvesting with aeroelastic instabilities 2) broadband vibration energy harvesting
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Advanced power extraction interfaces for energy conversion enhancement
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Human motion energy harvesting; biosensing
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Wave energy harvesting
- Smart Materials and Structures
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Adaptive devices for energy harvesting, vibration suppression, actuating and sensing
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Electromechanically coupled adaptive structures with smart materials (piezoelectric / flexoelectric / triboelectric / electret mechanisms)
- Integrated Self-Powered Wireless Sensor Networks/Active Tags
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Sustainable physiological monitoring with self-powered body sensor networks
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Sustainable smart environmental/structural health monitoring
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Sustainable object tracking
Grants
2023, UNSW RIS, CI
2022, UNSW RIS, Sole CI
2022-2024, UNSW, Start-Up
2021-2024, Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), Sole CI
2021, NSW Defence Innovation Network, CI
2019, UTS Blue Sky Grant, Lead CI
2018, UTS Seed Grant, Sole CI
2018, UTS Midas teaching grant, CI
2011-2012, Nanyang Engineering Doctoral Scholarship (NEDS) Award, NTU Singapore (1 of 12 awardees in the university)
Teaching
2023-present, Mechanics of Solids II, Course Convenor & Lecturer
2022, Introduction to Aircraft Engineering, Course Convenor & Lecturer
2018-2020, Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering, Subject Coordinator & Lecturer