Associate Professor Paul Joseph

Paul is a chemist specialising in polymer science and combustion chemistry, with more than 20 years of research experience. He has an international reputation in the field of polymer/material science, with a track record of publishing research and securing external and internal research funding.

After obtaining his PhD in Polymer Science from Lancaster University, UK, Paul worked at Lancaster and Sheffield Universities as a Research Associate in area of polymer science before taking up a research fellowship at University of Ulster, UK. Subsequently, he was promoted to Lecturer, and then Senior Lecturer, before securing the current position of Associate Professor in Material Science at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.

Paul has obtained external research funding from highly competitive sources, including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK. While at Sheffield University, he was instrumental in attracting two EPSRC grants (a total of £225,627), and at Ulster Paul was the principal investigator in an EPSRC project, both in the area of functional polymeric materials (£320,000). He was also lead academic supervisor for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project worth £107,000, relating to devising environmentally-friendly means of removing unspent polymeric products from components of injection moulding machines. In addition, Paul was a co-investigator on another EPSRC program (£970,514), that investigated the integrated safety strategies for on-board hydrogen storage systems. While at Ulster he also attracted various small- to medium-size grants through internal bids (totalling about £70,000).

Since joining Victoria University, he has secured the following research grants:

• VU Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Defence Science and Technology Group: 'Experimental and numerical investigations on the efficacy of water mist systems for active suppression of fires involving lithium-ion batteries in enclosure', AUD $350,000 (2017- 2020)
• Victoria University Research Infrastructure Grant Scheme: 'Fire Emissions Mitigation System (FEMS)', AUD $300,000 (2016-2017)
• Victoria University Capital Expenditure Grant: 'Pyrolysis Combustion Flow Calorimeter (PCFC)',  AUD $50,000 (2015).

To date, Paul has co-authored about 120 research outputs, including 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and nine invited book chapters. He has been actively involved in research students’ supervision at four different universities dotted across the world. Currently, he supervises four PhD programs at Victoria University.