Rosalie Hocking Royal Australian Chemical Institute National Congress 2026

Rosalie Hocking

Rosalie completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in 2004, before undertaking postdoctoral research at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in the group of Professors Edward Solomon, Britt Hedman and Keith Hodgson. She then returned to Australia as a Beamline Fellow at Monash University, prior to taking up a faculty position at James Cook University in Far North Queensland. She is currently a Professor and ARC Future Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Her research focuses on developing new approaches to understand and characterise materials. This includes designing electrochemical devices powered by solar-derived electricity to produce essential commodity chemicals such as hydrogen and ammonia. A key component of her work involves the Australian Synchrotron, where she uses advanced X-ray techniques to uncover how materials function and as often why they don’t. In parallel, Rosalie is also researching the development of low-cost sensor technologies that broaden access to material characterisation, including smartphone-based tools for detecting asbestos in building materials, helping to improve equity in chemical analysis. She has held several leadership roles within the Australian Synchrotron, including Chair of the User Advisory Committee, and has contributed to Program Advisory Committees for multiple beamlines