Martina Stenzel

Martina Heide Stenzel FAA is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales. She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador and an editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry (since 2008)

Education

Professor Martina Stenzel studied chemistry (1990—1996) at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. After completing a master's degree in science she continued her postgraduate studies at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry in Stuttgart. She completed her PhD thesis "Synthesis and Characterization Cu(I) containing polyurethanes for the application as a carrier membrane for the separation of ethylene from gas mixtures" in 1999 and soon afterwards moved to Australia to take up a postdoctoral fellows position at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology, at UNSW. After nearly a decade of lecturing she was promoted to Co-director of Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design in 2013.

Research

Over the past 10 years her research interests have shifted from pure polymer synthesis to the application of polymers for biomedical applications. She has authored over 200 journal articles.

Awards

• 1999: DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship
• 2005: John Yu fellowship to visit the Melville Laboratories at the University of Cambridge, England
• 2006: Finalist of the Eureka Prize of the Australian Museum, Category "People's choice award" and "UNSW Eureka Prize for Scientific research"
• 2008: RACI David Sangster Polymer Science and Technology Achievement Award
• 2009: UNSW Engineering Excellence award for research
• 2009: ARC Future Fellow
• 2011: LeFevre Medal of the Australian Academy of Science
• 2012: RACI polymer division citation award
• 2018: Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA)
• 2018: Liversidge Medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales