Who We Are & What We Do: IMDL at The Australian National University
In order to make significant advances towards new electronics, sustainable-energy and biomolecular/biomedical technologies, the focus on achieving a molecular-level understanding of crucial phenomena has intensified over the past two decades. So much so, that chemistry, biology, physics, medicine and engineering now collectively interface with each other at the molecular level in the search for new technologies. Theory, software and hardware are driving massive advances in high performance computing to enable an unprecedented acceleration in discovery and development of new materials for the energy, environment, health and IT sectors.
The core focus of the Integrated Materials Design Laboratory (IMDL) is high performance atomic-scale simulations to advance materials discovery in Australia across four main programmatic areas: (i) Catalytic Materials; (ii) Energy Harvesting and Storage Materials; (iii) Electronic Materials and (iv) Soft Matter and Pharmaceutics.
The IMDL is an evolution of the Integrated Materials Design Centre (IMDC), which Professor Smith founded and directed at UNSW Sydney (2014-2017) before later taking up the role of NCI Director at the Australian National University (ANU) in 2018. Its core philosophy is to pursue a holistic approach to the materials design cycle involving tight collaborative exchanges between its key modelling, synthesis, characterization and testing components. IMDL core members are heavily engaged in national and international collaborations with valued experimental partners whose complementary expertise helps to implement this collaborative vision.
We hope this website will provide helpful information for professional colleagues as well as for interested students and researchers about the IMDL’s people, its research and the many research opportunities in this area at the Australian National university.