Research advanced by fulbright scholars
[ Research Review 0809 ]
Restoring human vision, reducing carbon emissions, fitter gamers and fire regeneration for grapevines will be addressed by four University of Melbourne researchers named as winners of this year€™s Australian Fulbright Scholarship.
The bionic eye will be closer to reality thanks to the work of award recipient, Dr Byron Wicks from the University€™s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Dr Wicks will travel to Berkeley with his scholarship to further work he has been doing with the National Information Communication Technology Australia (NICTA) Victorian Research Laboratory.
€œWe aim to develop a device that will restore human vision lost to diseases which destroy the photoreceptor cells in the retina but leave the subsequent neurons such as retinal ganglion cells relatively intact and functional,€ he said.
€œThese diseases include retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration and are responsible for 48 per cent of all blindness in Australia.€
The University€™s other winners were:
Dr Tina Bell, who will travel to the US and research the effects of smoke from fires on grapevines.
Floyd Mueller, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, who will travel to Stanford University to help designers create video games that help make you fit.
Colin Scholes, a Research Fellow at the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) at the University, who will head to the University of Texas to work on cheaper ways to minimise carbon emissions.
The four researchers were among 23 recipients of the prestigious award, which is issued annually by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission.
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