Researcher biography

Jason Stokes is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and leads the Premium Food and Beverages Program in Australia's Food and Beverage Accelerator. The Premium Food and Beverages Program undertakes industry-driven research that builds capability and expertise for industry to value-add onshore and grow business opportunities.

He has been the Deputy Associate Dean of Research (Research Training) for the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (2020-2023). His formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) and PhD from The University of Melbourne, Australia. He spent 10 years (1999 – 2008) as a research scientist at Unilever's corporate research laboratory in the United Kingdom and joined The University of Queensland in October 2008.

Jason's research principally concerns the rheology, tribology and interfacial properties and structure of complex fluids and soft materials encompassing nanocrystalline cellulose, microgels, biopolymers, dairy, colloids, emulsions, soft matter systems, soft materials, gels, foams, biofluids, saliva, mucin, plant cells, bacterial cellulose hydrogels, liquid crystals, plant proteins and polysaccarides, and seed mucilage. In partnership with industry, his research is applied to diverse research areas such as food oral processing and sensory science, food structure design and food engineering for dairy and plant-based foods as well as beverages.. He also examines the flow and pumping of non-Newtonian fluids and suspensions for a range of industries including waste and fire fighting foams. Fundamental research activities include developing new principals in viscoelastic lubrication of complex fluids incorporating studies in soft-tribology and biotribology, as well as development of soft materials with programmable anisotropy using aqueous suspensions of nanocellulose.

Awards include the British Society of Rheology Annual Award 2013 for contributions to the field of rheology, and the 2012 Capt. Alfred E. Hunt Memorial Award from Society of Tribology Lubrication Engineers (STLE) for authoring "the best paper dealing with the field of lubrication". He is an Elected Delegate of the Individual Members for the European Society of Rheology Committee (2018– 2022), Associate editor for the Korea-Australia Rheology Journal, and member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Texture Studies and Journal of Biotribology. Recognising his contribution to the training Higher Degree by Research students, including PhD students, he was awarded a Special Commendation for Industry Engagement in Graduate Research from 2020 Australian Council of Graduate Research Excellence.