HG Smith Memorial Medal

The HG Smith Medal is awarded annually to a financial member of RACI who has contributed most to the development of some branch of chemical science; this contribution will be judged by research work published or accepted for publications during the ten years immediately preceding the award. The major proportion of the work shall have been done in Australia or its Territories.

PROFESSOR JUSTIN GOODING

One of the founding Directors of the new Australian Centre for Nanomedicine based at the University of New South Wales.

Professor Justin Gooding MRACI CChem received his DPhil in physical chemistry from the University of Oxford in 1996, whereupon he relocated to the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge to perform research into interfacing surfaces with biological molecules for biosensing applications. In February 1997, he returned to Australia as a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales. Rapidly promoted to full Professor in 2006, he is now Scientia Professor and ARC Professorial Fellow at the University of New South Wales, leading the Biosensors and Biodevices Research Group in the School of Chemistry, as well as the CSIRO Flagship Cluster on Sensing Systems for Analysis of Aquatic Environments. He is also Program Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Functional Nanomaterials and one of the founding Directors of the new Australian Centre for Nanomedicine based at the University of New South Wales.

Professor Gooding has a leading international reputation in the modification of surfaces with self-assembled monolayers to enable controlled interactions with biomolecules, for biosensing, bioelectronics and cell biology applications. The majority of his work has been focused on the conceptual understanding of how to design surfaces that interact with biological systems in a highly controlled way. He has made major fundamental and applied contributions to the field of interfacial science, with a body of work focused on the development of highly novel chemical and biosensors. Utilising his expertise in surface chemistry, Professor Gooding has stimulated a paradigm shift in sensor research through the design and fabrication of sensing interfaces with molecular level control.