Leslie received his PhD from Imperial College London in 2002, for which he was awarded the Dudley Newitt prize for a computational/theoretical thesis of outstanding merit. Prior to joining RMIT, he was a Mathematical Modeller at Det Norske Veritas UK and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, USA, after which he commenced a faculty position at Monash University. In addition, he has also held the Australian Research Fellowship and Australian Research Council Future Fellowship from 2009 to 2017.
Leslie was the recipient of the 2007 Young Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute for Policy & Science ‘in recognition of the achievements of outstanding young researchers in the sciences including physical, biomedical, applied sciences, engineering and technology’, both the Dean’s and Vice-Chancellor’s awards for excellence in early career research at Monash University, and the Vice-Chancellor’s award for research excellence as well as the university’s award for research innovation at RMIT. His work on microfluidics has been featured widely in the media, for example, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s science television program Catalyst, 3RRR and SBS radio broadcasts, and in various articles in The Economist, New Scientist and The Washington Times, in addition to being highlighted in Nature and Science.
Leslie is co-author of the book Electrokinetically Driven Microfluidics & Nanofluidics (Cambridge University Press), and the author of over 250 research publications and 25 patent applications. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the American Institute of Physics journal Biomicrofluidics and an editorial board member of Interfacial Phenomena & Heat Transfer, Frontiers in Bioengineering & Biotechnology, Biosensors and Micro.