Professor Gary Rosengarten, Senior Research Fellow

VISUAL: Professor Gary Rosengarten, RMIT University logo.

VISUAL: Professor Gary Rosengarten, Vice?Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: Only recently in the last year I moved back to Melbourne and I did that for partly lifestyle reasons.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking, side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: Melbourne is known as one of the most liveable cities in the world ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... and I love Melbourne because of the AFL as well. I grew up being an AFL supporter and I played AFL.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking, side on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: Half of my family supports the Swans and half of my family supports Hawthorn ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera, smiling.

Gary Rosengarten: ... and I’m a Hawthorn supporter, yes. So it was very interesting (chuckling) Grand Final last year.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking, side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: Well, what I do is I’m an academic ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... and an academic does a mixture of research, teaching, administration. And I love the research because ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten and male and female students at project site looking at different types of solar panels and discussing same.

Gary Rosengarten: ... it’s a matter of exploring new ideas and hoping that ... to change the world. We all ... the ... we all expect to be able to change the world and hopefully that’s what we can do and the beauty is we have freedom to do that in academia. And I always try to say to myself ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... when I’m taking a project: is this something that just a consulting engineer can do ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten teaching two male students and one female student next to solar panels at project site.

Gary Rosengarten: ... or is it something that you need academia? You need the time, the freedom and that ... and the equipment that we have available at universities like RMIT.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: A lot of the research I’m doing at the moment is funded ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking, side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... through government agencies for solar energy. So we’re looking at making ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... solar energy collection more efficient and more cost?effective. And when I talk about solar energy ...

VISUAL: Video clip of time?lapsed view of Melbourne city street and buildings in skyline.

Gary Rosengarten: ... I’m talking about solar thermal, creating heat from the sun, not photovoltaics ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... which create electricity. The standard solar panels you think about ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking, side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... on your roof are PV panels, photovoltaic. But we’re looking at more solar water heating but at much higher temperatures ...

VISUAL: Student working on project, adjusting a spot light.

Gary Rosengarten: ... and how we could make that more efficient. We’re working with a variety of companies to do this together helping them.

VISUAL: Student removing electrical circuit from back of machine, working on it with tool then placing it back in machine.

Gary Rosengarten: We’re looking at anything from 100 to about 400 degrees so we can replace gas boilers, anywhere where you need high temperatures for industrial applications. And the other application we’re looking at is if you get temperatures around 180 degrees there’s a technology called ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... absorption cooling which allows you to use the heat ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... to actually cool. So this is quite a good application because generally you want the most cooling when it’s the hottest and sunniest, so it’s about utilising that heat efficiently.

VISUAL: Melbourne city skyline.

Gary Rosengarten: And then above 200, there’s processing for ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... food industries, for metallurgical industries, for chemical industries that use this heat all the time and they do that with gas.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten working in lab.

Gary Rosengarten: So we’re offsetting burning gas, free and we’re not creating greenhouse gases.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten working in lab speaking with two male students.

Gary Rosengarten: The way I see RMIT at the moment, it’s come from its hist ... historically as a teaching college and the last 20 or 30 years, it’s turned into a university and it’s really now, in the last 10 years, I’d say, turned into a research?intensive university. Its research has really picked up and I keep on telling people, collaborators from overseas that ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... RMIT is the new MIT of Australia. So it’s really heading in that right direction; a mixture of very good applied research working with companies and some ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking side?on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... fundamental research to go with that.

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: After the VC Fellowship, I’ve got a tenured position as a professor here ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking side on to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... so I’m going to continue my research on and hopefully ...

VISUAL: Gary Rosengarten speaking to camera.

Gary Rosengarten: ... expand the group and continue what I’m doing ‘cause I’m enjoying it here, yeah.

VISUAL: Find out more at www.rmit.edu.au/research/research-fellowship-schemes, RMIT University logo.

VISUAL: RMIT University logo.

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