Dr Amanda Barnard.

Dr Amanda Barnard: investigating materials at the nanoscale

Dr Amanda Barnard's work is increasing our understanding of how nanoparticles interact with the environment.

• 20 August 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

Profile

• Current activities
• Nanomorphology
• Background

Current activities

Dr Amanda Barnard has made a number of important contributions to the field of nanoscience. In particular, she has undertaken ground-breaking research into how nanoparticles interact with the environment and how environmental changes may affect their stability.

This work has earned her invitations to write an article for Nature Materials and Nature Nanotechnology and articles outlining collaborative strategies for predicting the risks and hazards associated with nanomaterials in Materials Today and Nanoscale, and a chapter on the topic in the book, Advances in Nanotechnology published by Nova Publishers.

Dr Barnard’s current focus is leader of the Virtual Nanoscience Laboratory (VNLab) for CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering.

Her current projects include:

• nanomorphology (investigating the structure, shape and phase of materials at the nanoscale)
• developing a new thermodynamic theory to describe nanoparticles shape as a function of size
• size-dependent phase transitions (identifying and examining the factors affecting phase transitions of polymorphs at the nanoscale)
• investigating the thermodynamic stability of metal and metal oxide nanomaterials
• modelling the stability, properties and interactions of multifunctional diamond nanoparticles for use in biomedical applications
• exploring the social implications of nanotechnology and consumer decision making surrounding the use of nanomaterials.

Nanomorphology

Using first principles or semi-empirical computer simulations, Dr Barnard's research focuses on the fundamental science of 'nanomorphology', a term used to describe the structures, shapes and solid-phase of materials at the nanoscale.

Her ground-breaking computational studies have explained why certain shapes are observed in nanomaterials (while others are not), and enabled new predictions of the physical conditions required to make specific shapes without the need for costly trial-and-error experimentation.

Virtual nanoscience laboratory.

Background

Dr Barnard graduated with Honours from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Victoria, Australia, in 2001 and gained her Doctorate in 2003, with a thesis in computational modelling of carbon nanostructures. The thesis resulted in 17 journal publications and one book chapter.

Since graduating, Dr Barnard has held Postdoctoral and Senior Research Fellow positions at several distinguished research institutions including

• Distinguished Research Fellow at the Center for Nanoscale Materials in Argonne, Illinois, USA
• Violette and Samuel Glasstone Fellow at the University of Oxford and the Queen’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom
• Inaugural Future Generation Fellow at The University of Melbourne, Australia
• Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellow (current).

Within the physics community, Dr Barnard is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience, has been invited to speak at several international conferences and has co-chaired symposia in the USA, Australia and Europe.

Dr Barnard has recieved numerous awards for her work. The following page outlines some of her recent awards.