Prof Simon Biggs ~ Vice-Chancellor

Simon Biggs is the Vice Chancellor and President of James Cook University. Before this, he held senior leadership roles at the University of Western Australia and the University of Queensland.

From 2002 until 2014, he was the Royal Academy of Engineering/NNL Chair in Particle Science and Engineering at the University of Leeds. He took this position after spending 8 years at The University of Newcastle (New South Wales, Australia). In his early career, he developed his research through post-doctoral positions at the Institut Charles Sadron (Strasbourg, France) and the University of Melbourne (Australia). His undergraduate and doctoral education was undertaken in the UK at the University of Bristol from where he has a PhD in Colloid Science.

The main research interests of Professor Biggs are in the field of colloid and interface engineering. He has a strong interest in the measurement, control, and manipulation of inter-particle forces to allow more efficient process engineering of particulate systems. He has been the chief investigator on numerous research projects and he is an author of over 270 refereed publications as well as 20 patents; his work has received in excess of 8000 citations with an H-index of over 50. He received the 2005 Beilby Medal from the RSC/IMMM/SCI awarded for “a substantial contribution towards fundamental research of practical significance”. His work has led to a substantial number of research partnerships with a wide cross section of industrial partners covering diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, personal care, foods, minerals processing and water treatment. Whilst at Leeds, his group developed a strong partnership with the UK nuclear industry working on legacy waste clean-up problems. He was a key member of a team that won the IChemE ‘Core Chemical Engineering’ award in 2011 for a project on the “Development of Fluidic Mixers for Processing of Intractable Sludge” and also the 2012 Core Chemical Engineering Award for a project on ‘Jet Interactions and Resuspension of Solids’. Both these awards were from the partnership between the University of Leeds and Sellafield Ltd. and arose as a result of the translation of our basic research into process engineering applications at Sellafield Site.

More recently his research interests have moved towards the bottom-up manufacture of functional particles, capsules and surface coatings which have application in a range of industrial products and processes. 

He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2011. The citation for his fellowship states that he is ‘distinguished for achievements in the application of colloid and interface science to the development of new functional materials and innovations in the engineering of particulate systems in the chemical, minerals and nuclear sectors.’ In 2016 he was also elected as a fellow of the Australian Academy for Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Research Disciplines

• Physical chemistry (3406)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Expanding knowledge (2801)

Fellowships

• 2016 - Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
• 2015 - Institution of Engineers, Australia
• 2011 - Royal Academy of Engineering
• 2006 - Institution of Chemical Engineers
• 2003 - Royal Society of Chemistry

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Hitchcock J, White A, Hondow N, Hughes T, Dupont H, Biggs S and Cayre O (2020) Metal-shell nanocapsules for the delivery of cancer drugs. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 567. pp. 171-180
• Hodges C, Harbottle D and Biggs S (2020) Investigating adsorbing viscoelastic fluids using the quartz crystal microbalance. ACS Omega, 5 (35). pp. 22081-22090
• Hunter T, Peakall J, Egarr D, Cowell D, Freear S, Tonge A, Horton L, Rice H, Smith I, Malone K, Burt D, Barnes M, Randall G, Biggs S and Fairweather M (2020) Concentration profiling of a horizontal sedimentation tank utilising a bespoke acoustic backscatter array and CFD simulations. Chemical Engineering Science, 218.
• Lopez R, Li H, Norret M, Iyer S, Biggs S and Atkin R (2020) Robust Hydrophobic Coatings Using Polymer Blends for the Surface Protection of Marble. Colloids and Surfaces A: physicochemical and engineering aspects, 599.
• Botha J, Hunter T, Johannsmann D, Austin D, Hodges C, Mackay G, Woodbury S, Biggs S and Harbottle D (2019) Resonance properties of quartz crystal microbalance immersed in high solid content suspensions. Colloids and Surfaces A: physicochemical and engineering aspects, 573. pp. 230-236
• Bux J, Peakall J, Rice H, Manga M, Biggs S and Hunter T (2019) Measurement and density normalisation of acoustic attenuation and backscattering constants of arbitrary suspensions within the Rayleigh scattering regime. Applied Acoustics, 146. pp. 9-22
• Nguyen T, Biggs S, Doi A and Nguyen A (2019) A new way of assessing droplet evaporation independently of the substrate hydrophobicity and contact line mode: A case study of sessile droplets with surfactants. Colloids and Surfaces A: physicochemical and engineering aspects, 577. pp. 396-404
• Stark K, Hitchcock J, Fiaz A, White A, Baxter E, Biggs S, McLaughlan J, Freear S and Cayre O (2019) Encapsulation of Emulsion Droplets with Metal Shells for Subsequent Remote, Triggered Release. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 11 (13). pp. 12272-12282
• White A, Langton C, Wille M, Hitchcock J, Cayre O, Biggs S, Blakey I, Whittaker A, Rose S and Puttick S (2019) Ultrasound-triggered release from metal shell microcapsules. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 554. pp. 444-452
• Botha J, Ding W, Hunter T, Biggs S, Mackay G, Cowley R, Woodbury S and Harbottle D (2018) Quartz crystal microbalance as a device to measure the yield stress of colloidal suspensions. Colloids and Surfaces A: physicochemical and engineering aspects, 546. pp. 179-185
• Hitchcock J, Tasker A, Stark K, Leeson A, Baxter E, Biggs S and Cayre O (2018) Adsorption of Catalytic Nanoparticles onto Polymer Substrates for Controlled Deposition of Microcapsule Metal Shells. Langmuir, 34 (4). pp. 1473-1480
• Johnson M, Peakall J, Jia X, Fairweather M, Harbottle D, Biggs S and Hunter T (2018) Enhanced gas migration through permeable bubble networks within consolidated soft sediments. AIChE Journal, 64 (11). pp. 4131-4147

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 30+ research outputs authored by Prof Simon Biggs from 2016 onwards.

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.