Research Fellows
Dr Alessia Belgi
Alessia Belgi is a postdoctoral researcher who recently joined the ARC Training Centre for Green Chemistry in Manufacturing. She is a trained peptide chemist and also has expertise in olefin metathesis and alkyne metathesis.
Alessia completed a Master’s Degree in Chemistry at the University of Padua in Italy. She has extensive experience working in industry as a chemical analyst at R&C Lab s.r.l. (now AGROLAB Italia s.r.l.) for over 4 years before relocating to Melbourne to undertake postgraduate studies. She obtained a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2012 in the field of peptides synthesis and the structure function relationship with their receptor/s.
In 2021 Dr Belgi completed a 9-year Postdoctoral Fellowship within the School of Chemistry at Monash University. During these years, her work focused on the design and synthesis of biologically relevant disulfide rich peptides, like human insulin and conotoxins, and their dicarba peptidomimetics using olefin and alkyne metathesis. This research was crucial to shed more light on the mode of action of these peptides.
Dr Belgi is an active member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Victoria. She has held executive positions in the Women in Chemistry and the Peptide Users Group committees. Currently, she is the secretary of the Peptide Users Group.
Dr Xuan Luo
Xuan Luo is a postdoctoral researcher who recently joined the ARC Training Centre for
Green Chemistry in Manufacturing. She has multidisciplinary expertise in the field of nanotechnology, biotechnology and biochemistry.
Xuan received her PhD from Flinders University in 2019 with PhD/Postdoctoral Award and then worked as a postdoctoral researcher on vortex-fluidic-mediated processing on biomaterial composites for biocatalysis.
Since 2019, her research has resulted in a number of awards, funding and fellowships, including the award of Overseas Travel Fellowship from Australian Nanotechnology Network in 2019, Flinders University Research Investment Fund in 2022 and Emerging Research Leader Early Career Researcher Award in 2022. Her current research program also includes developing biosensor platforms with novel immobilisation and membrane fabrication technology for the environmental and diagnostic disciplines.
Dr Livia Salvati Manni
Livia Salvati Manni’s research interests focus on the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules in extreme environments. She obtained her PhD from University of Zurich in 2017 working on the synthesis and phase behavior of cyclopropanated lipids, and from their use for biomedical applications. Between 2017 and 2019 she was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich where she studied water confinement in soft materials at sub-zero temperature.
In 2019 she obtained a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to move to the University of Sydney and work with Prof Renae Ryan and Prof Gregory Warr. Since 2019, she has been part of the Warr’s group as postdoctoral researcher. In Sydney, she employed neutron and x-ray scattering to study lipidic self-assembly in ionic liquids, and the interaction between solvents, lipids and membrane proteins.
Since 2021 she has been an honorary lecturer at the University of Newcastle. Recently she joined the ARC Training Centre for Green Chemistry in Manufacturing.
Dr Sachin Talekar
Dr. Sachin Talekar is a biochemical engineer with a strong research background in enzyme technology and bioprocessing. Sachin received his master's degree in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology and has over 7 years of experience in teaching, supervision, and research in enzyme catalysis, bio-reaction engineering, and innovative bioprocessing.
In 2019, he received a PhD in the field of an integrated biorefinery concept for the green and sustainable conversion of agro-processing waste into value-added products from the joint PhD program between IIT Bombay, India, and Monash University, Australia. His PhD project included a collaboration with TATA Chemicals in Pune to develop an integrated bio-refinery from pomegranate processing waste.
Following his PhD, he worked for 1.5 years as a research professor at Korea University in Seoul, where he conducted independent research and supervision in the fields of enzyme nano-stabilization and CO2 conversion. He has many papers published in prestigious journals such as ACS, RSC, and Elsevier, and he holds three patents in the field of bio-refinery and enzyme catalysis.
Dr Kasturi Vimalanathan
kasturi.vimalanathan@flinders.edu.au
Kasturi Vimalanathan is a postdoctoral researcher within the ARC Training Centre for Green
Chemistry in Manufacturing. She completed a PhD in Chemistry from Flinders University in 2016.
Her work has mainly revolved around nanocarbon synthesis using green chemistry and studying its
properties in a variety of applications.
She has extensive experience working in collaboration with industry on developing sustainable processes for the exfoliation of graphene and graphene oxide
and slicing of carbon nanotubes. Her research has focussed on designing new strategies, using safer solvents and greener processing routes devoid of auxiliary substances, to synthesize nanomaterials that exhibit properties beyond that of the ubiquitous graphene.
Besides being active in the scientific arena, she is also the Secretary of the Australian Malaysian
Business Council Inc. here in South Australia.