DrAli Zolfagharian

Ali Zolfagharian is recognised for his research on smart materials, 4D printing and soft robotics. He is the recipient of the JSPS Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan (2026),⁠ the Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA (2024), the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Career Excellence in Research and Innovation (2023), and has been among the top 2% cited scientists listed by Stanford University and Elsevier for successive years (2021-2025), the Alfred Deakin Medallist for Best Doctoral Thesis (2019) and the Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship Awardee (2018) and was nominated and shortlisted by the Australian Academy of Science's John Booker Medal 2025 for recognising outstanding EMCR excellence in science, which is carried over to the 2027 round. Ali Zolfagharian has also been selected among 20 of the future research leaders and the newly minted cohort for the inaugural Deakin Research Accelerator Program (2026-2027) by the SEBE Faculty and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research Planning and Governance. He is co-founder of the 4D Printing Society and Soft Robotics Australia, editor-in-chief of 4D Printing, and co-editor of the Smart Materials in Additive Manufacturing V1, V2, and V3 book series published by Elsevier. He established the 4D Printing and Robotic Materials lab in 2018 at the School of Engineering, Deakin University, Australia, and has thus far received >A$1.1 M in research funding, leading to successful outputs, including >200 articles, 8 book chapters, and 6 books. He is currently on the editorial board of Smart Materials in Manufacturing, Designs, and Materials Research Express.

He has supervised >87 students across PhD (7), Master's (64), and Honours (16) programmes on multidisciplinary projects, where he has been the primary supervisor for 5 PhD students and has co-supervised 3 PhD students and 2 postdoctoral research fellows. The students were awarded the Frederic Barnes Waldron Prize from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the Faculty Summer Project Prize, and the 4DMDA2024 Conference’s Best Presentation Award and recruited as academic staff in national and international institutes. The scholarly aspects of his work in developing contemporary engineering education, considering the generative AI impacts, have been disseminated through the 2025 Deakin Teaching and Learning Conference, the Australasian Association for Engineering Education Annual Conference and the invited keynote by Engineers Australia to the Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics (ACAM 12) 2026.

Ali has also taken a range of strategic service roles through strengthening collaboration, integrity, and EMCR researcher development. As Faculty of SEBE’s Stream Leader within Deakin’s Science and Society Network, Faculty Research Integrity Advisor (RIA), and Deakin Digital Design and Engineering Centre (3DEC) Steering Committee, he supports interdisciplinary initiatives, seed funding, fostering ethical practice, and policy-relevant research impact to enhance career development pathways.