Emerging Leaders Showcase
Join us to hear from two talented emerging leaders as they showcase their cutting-edge research and share their career journeys.
Join us to hear from two talented emerging leaders as they showcase their cutting-edge research and share their career journeys.
- Dr Scott Menegon will discuss improving the seismic resilience of multi-storey buildings through advances in building codes, education and innovative structural systems.
- A/Prof. Huacheng Zhang will present her work on artificial ion channels and membranes, with applications in efficient separation, energy harvesting and neural signalling.
They will also reflect on how they built networks, overcame challenges and achieved success in their fields.
Date
Wednesday 12 November 2025Location
Time
6:30 PM - 7:30 PMImportant information
6:30pm - 7:30pm - Presentation (In-person and online) - Free
7:30pm - 9:00pm - Optional paid dinner - $38
Speakers
Dr Scott Menegon
Senior Lecturer in Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology
Senior Lecturer in Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology
Dr Scott Menegon is a structural engineer with experience across both industry and academia, and he currently works as a Senior Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology. Scott is the President of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) and is a Chartered Professional Engineer with experience designing buildings in the health, government, education, transport and residential sectors. Scott is a member of BD-006-11 and BD-002-08, which are the Standards Australia sub-committees responsible for AS 1170.4 and the seismic provisions of AS 3600, respectively. Scott's contributions to seismic design in Australia have been recognised through being awarded the 2019 and 2022 RW Chapman Medal from Engineers Australia and the 2024 Batterham Medal for Engineering Excellence from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
A/Prof Huacheng Zhang
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Associate Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, RMIT University
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Associate Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, RMIT University
Huacheng Zhang is an NHMRC Energing Leadership Fellow and an Associate Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering at RMIT University. She received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in July 2014. She then worked as an Assistant Professor at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS, followed by a postdoctoral research fellow, and an ARC DECRA Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Monash University. Since joining RMIT in July 2020, she has received the RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship (2020), the ARC Future Fellowship (2020), the RMIT VC Award for Research Excellence-ECR (2021), the MSA Membrane Science Award(2022), the J&J WiSTEM2D Scholars Award (2023), and the NHMRC Investigator Grant (Emerging Leadership 2, 2024).
