Dr Shaoyu Zhao is a Lecturer & ARC DECRA Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology and an Adjunct Fellow at RMIT University. He obtained his PhD at the University of Queensland in August 2022, and then worked as a Research Fellow at RMIT University until July 2025.

His research interests include advanced composite materials and structures, mechanical metamaterials, mechanics of carbon nanotube/graphene nanocomposites, functionally graded materials, origami/kirigami engineering, and artificial intelligence in engineering applications. He has published more than 50 academic papers in top-tier international journals, including two ESI highly cited papers, with over 2300 citations and an H-index of 27.

He serves as an Early Career Editorial Board Member for several SCI journals, including Engineering Structures (Q1 journal), International Journal of Structural Integrity (Q1 journal), and International Journal of Smart and Nano Materials (Q1 journal).

Awards:

Best paper award, The First International Conference on Engineering Structures (ICES2024)

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2025), Australian Research Council