Our People

Assoc. Prof. Jaka Sunarso

Director

Assoc. Prof. Jaka Sunarso has more than a decade experience as a Chemical Engineer and a Chemist. He obtained his ME and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia, following which he secured his Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from Deakin University, Australia and Banting Postdoctoral Fellow from University of Waterloo, Canada. He is a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) of the Engineering Council, United Kingdom (UK) and a member and a Chartered Energy Engineer of the Energy Institute, UK. Jaka is an experienced electrochemist with more than a decade working experience in mixed ionic (protonic)-electronic conducting membranes, cathode materials, and various battery materials. His research interests are unified by a common, broader theme - developing and optimising electrochemical-based materials for sustainable energy delivery. His works have been consistently focused on the applications of batteries, fuel cells and membranes. He also has additional interest in the utilisation of low-cost biomass for energy and environmental applications.

Dr. ChungSiung Choo

Cluster Leader: Rural Urban Development

Dr. Choo is currently a Senior Lecturer and Discipline Leader for the Civil Engineering program at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. He has over 6 years of experience as a researcher and as a lecturer of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. He received his PhD as a part of an industrially supported project that assessed the challenges of local Sarawakian geology on geotechnical engineering. His research interests are in tunneling and trenchless technologies and deep excavations specifically those involving soil-structure interactions. He is also pursuing research endeavours in re-purposing and re-utilising by-products for industrial applications, fundamental constitutive modelling of highly weathered lithologies, and particulate mechanics of geo-materials. To date, he has presented the findings of his research in Q1 geotechnical engineering journals and in several international conferences. Dr Choo also has industrial experience as a specialist geotechnical engineer. He is a graduate engineer registered with Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM), Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and is also a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) of the Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust).

Dr. JiuanJing Chew

Cluster Leader: Sustainable and Clean Energy

Dr. Chew completed her BEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from Curtin University of Technology (Malaysia) in 2006. She went on to gain industry experience working as process engineer in the industry. In 2010, she pursued her PhD in Chemical Engineering with Monash University, working in the area of biomass conversion to solid biofuel involving torrefaction or low temperature pyrolysis. Joining Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak in 2014, Dr Chew has led the Biomass Research group in her department where her interest is in the field of conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals using existing waste stream. She is also interested in the repurposing of second generation biomass to value-added products such as biochars and has recently ventured into the area of heterogeneous catalysis to enable selective conversion of biomass.

Dr. Daniel LeeTung Tan

Cluster Leader: Smart Agriculture and Sustainable Environments

Dr. Daniel Tan obtained both DVM and PhD at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). He has worked on shrimp White Spot Syndrome Virus for his PhD project. While in the University, he was also involved in PCR based diagnostic kit, which won multiple awards including Innovation and Technology Exhibition (ITEX 2000), Salon International des Inventions de Genève (2001), and International Invention and New Products Exposition (INPEX 2002). After coming back to Sarawak, he served in Sarawak Biodiversity Centre for about seven years, helping to establish the microbiology labs for research on antibiotic producing microorganisms. His current research is on forest microbes, aiming to use these beneficial microbes as biofertiliser, bioremediation, and biological control agents.

Assoc. Prof. Moritz Mueller

Member

Upon graduation at the United Kingdom (UK) National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, Dr. Mueller accepted a lectureship position at Swinburne Sarawak where he initially established the BSc (Biotechnology) program and later set up the Aquatic and Environmental Sciences (AquES) Research Group. His research focuses on (biogeochemical) cycles in the Anthropocene, mainly on greenhouse gases, dissolved organic and inorganic carbon, environmental microbiology, nutrients, trace metals, microplastics, and the use of remote sensing. Dr. Mueller’s collaborative work has been published in Nature Communications, as well as other A* journals such as Nature Scientific Reports and Global Change Biology. Recent results are being published in a Special Issue in Biogeosciences. Over the past five years, he has secured national and international grants totaling over four million AUD as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator. Recent projects are funded by the Australian Academy of Sciences (with CSIRO, establishment of a DataCube for Sarawak) and the UK GCRF (with UEA; establishment of a centre in Kuching to analyse microplastics in Borneo). Dr. Mueller has represented Malaysia at international meetings such as the multilateral Coral Triangle Initiative or the IMBeR Continental Margins Working Group, a core project of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and Future Earth. He has also been appointed the Sarawak node of the Malaysian Society of Marine Sciences.

Dr. Matthew NgieHing Wong

Member

Dr. Wong specialises in the field of environmental engineering, with particular interest in unit operations and processes of water and wastewater treatment plants, and solid waste engineering and management. He has 20 years of teaching and industrial experience with supervisory roles under KPI driven environment in USA, Singapore, and Malaysia. He has also been involved in the development of strategic plans and proposals to secure research grants from the government agencies and industrial partners, such as Zabel Grant (USA), NEA-ETRP Grant (Singapore), MIT-SMART Grant (Singapore), and Sarawak Research and Development Council (Malaysia). He has been nominated and received a few learning and teaching awards for his unique Problem-based Learning (PBL) pedagogy approach, including Vice-Chancellor’s Industry Engagement Award (2019), Top 3 Winner of Most Innovative Project Awards (2015), Commendation Award from Sembcorp Marine’s Green Wave Environmental Care Project (2015), and Most Appreciated Student Mentor (2013 and 2014), Best Certified PBL Facilitator (2011). Lastly, he has also been actively involved in several corporate social responsibility and community engagement projects in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan, USA, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Dr. Daniel TingWee Looi

Member

Dr. Looi is a Civil Engineer, specialised in Structural and Earthquake Engineering. He obtained his BEng from University of Malaya, PhD and Postdoctoral Fellow from The University of Hong Kong. Daniel practiced as a structural engineer in the industry for five years before he pursued his PhD research. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng - Structural) of Engineers Australia (IEAust) and a member of the Earthquake Committee of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM). He is a key contributor to the development of the National Annex to Eurocode 8 on the seismic design of building structures for Malaysia. Besides seismic engineering, he has also published research works in modular buildings, concrete mechanics, and fastening technologies. His research in concrete structures was recognised by the HKIE Outstanding Paper Award for Young Researcher/Engineer (2015).

Dr. KokHeng Soon

Member

Dr. Soon is experienced in material science and polymer based composites. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast. He is a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) of the Engineering Council, United Kingdom. His research interests include the processing-morphology-properties relationship of plastics and polymer composites, including nanocomposites, green and biodegradable composites. He also has additional interest in the computational mechanics of polymer and semiconductor materials.

Dr. BingShen How

Member

Dr. How received his MEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham (Malaysia Campus) in 2014. He further received his PhD from the same Institution in 2018. Upon graduation, Dr. How joined Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS as a postdoc. After the completion of the postdoc project, he then joined the Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus) (SUTS) as a Chemical Engineering Lecturer. He is a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) of the IChemE, United Kingdom. Dr. How is an active researcher who have research interests in (i) sustainable biomass value chain management; (ii) process modelling, integration, and optimisation; and (iii) P-graph application. He is also the winner of 2019 Early Career Researcher Award in SUTS.