Yang Fu

Yang Fu has multinational and multi-university experience at several of the world’s top universities and institutions. He obtained his master's degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2018, which is the highest academic institution and Research & Development center in China. Additionally, he has studied and worked at the Tokyo University of Science, University of Newcastle, Swinburne University of Technology, RMIT University, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) energy center across different states of Australia. In 2023, he completed his PhD studies in the School of Science at RMIT University. Currently, Dr. Fu works as a Postdoctoral researcher in the Centre for Atomaterials and Nanomanufacturing at RMIT, collaborating with researchers from the US, Australia, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, and other regions. His focus is on the renewable energy supply chain, with the ultimate goal of achieving global carbon neutrality.

He was awarded RMIT STEM Staff Award for Excellence - Early Career (Research & Innovation) in 2025, RMIT Prize for Research Excellence (Higher degree research) in 2024 and Asia’s Outstanding Researcher Award for his excellence in “Layer-structured materials for ambient nitrogen fixation” by Times of Research and the World Research Council in India in 2023. He also received the Best HDR Publication Award at the University of Newcastle in 2020 and the Best Oral Presentation Award at the Advanced Materials World Congress in 2018, awarded by the International Association of Advanced Materials in Singapore. These accolades demonstrate his outstanding academic achievements. In 2022, he as a member joined the Australian Materials Research Society and the Royal Society of Victoria, Australia.

He shows strong interest in the renewable energy field, with pioneering work in functional photocatalytic, electrocatalytic, and piezocatalytic materials for harvesting and utilizing solar, electrical, and mechanical energy, further integrated into his development of next-generation, high-performance energy storage systems, including fuel cell-based devices, safe aqueous batteries, and quasi-solid-state zinc-ion batteries. He has published and submitted over 60 peer-reviewed journal papers in top-tier journals such as Science Advances, Chemical Reviews, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Nano-Micro Letters, Advanced Energy Materials, and Advanced Functional Materials, totally attracting over 2100 citations with an H-index of 22, and 2 issued patents.

Not only is he a researcher, but he is also an exceptional supervisor. To date, he supervised 5 HDR student, 2 undergraduates, 1 postgraduate by research, and 1 honors student. His professional leadership is further evident through his engagement in academic roles, including serving as a guest editor, young editorial board member, and peer reviewer for multiple journals from American Chemical Society (ACS), Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and MDPI. He also organised 5 as Organising Committee Member and attend 3 as Invited Speaker, international conferences in the past five years. As the core member of the team, he has participated in or led over $2 M funding from the Federal Government, Victorian State Government, CSIRO, Japan’s Science and Technology Agency (JST), RMIT, and industry partners to conduct innovation work, which is not only fundamentally significant but also shows far-reaching impact for industry. Furthermore, to achieve the research translation, he actively participated in various industry activities and his projects are widely recognised by various communities. To date, his projects have been successfully selected multiple times for the final rounds of the Nexus Pitch Competitions (organised by the City of Melbourne), Eureka International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, and ‘CHUNHUI CUP’ Overseas Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Melbourne Qualifier (organised by the Global Business College of Australia, GBCA). Meanwhile, based on his PhD research outcomes, he has been successfully awarded the 2024 Blue Sky grant scheme (RMIT Internal Grant, Sole CI) and 2023 ARC Linkage project (Lead CI). These contributions aim to advance technology transfer & commercialisation efforts in Australia.