Professor Justin Cooper-White

Group Leader, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology

Director, UQ-StemCARE

Professor Justin Cooper-White is a global leader in using engineering to solve problems in biology. In addition to holding the position of AIBN Group Leader, Professor Cooper-White is Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node and is one of only 13 CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive Science Leaders across the country. He is a past President of both the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and the Australian Society of Rheology and has previously served as an Associate Dean (Research) at the UQ Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology.

Professor Cooper-White has been chair or co-chair of three international conferences, focusing on either rheology or biomaterials and tissue engineering: the Australian representative on the International Advisory Committee, 15th International Congress on Rheology, Monterey, US; a member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee for the World Congress on Biomaterials, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and currently an Australian representative on the Interntional Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBE). He is the inventor on six international patents. He has performed contract and sponsored research work for multinationals such as Mesoblast, Rhodia, Unilever and Nestle International and has received more than $45 million in competitive grant funding.

Recognition of Professor Cooper-White’s standing in the research field is reflected in the nine plenary and more than 25 keynote presentations he has been invited to give at national and international conferences since 2001. He received the 2005 Annual Award of the British Society of Rheology for contributions to the fields of rheology and non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. His work on engineered surfaces, specifically for directing mesenchymal stem cell fate was highlighted as one the most influential works on stem cell – biomaterial interactions at the 2008 World Biomaterials Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.