Congratulations to the 2025 APSRC award winners!

alisonpotter2
2 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 hours ago

The Asia-Pacific Solar Research Conference (APSRC) returned to the University of Queensland from 2–4 December, bringing together Australia’s leading researchers, students, and industry partners for three days of lively discussion and cutting-edge photovoltaic science. As a funding partner of the conference and a long-standing supporter of emerging talent, the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) is proud to celebrate the 2025 award recipients.

This year’s program featured seven major awards recognising outstanding contributions across solar cell devices, renewable energy data and integration, perovskite science, modelling, imaging, and poster presentations. In total, $6,250 in prize money was awarded to students and early career researchers (ECRs), supported by ACAP and our partners across the Australian PV community.

Wal Read Memorial Awards

Supported by the Australian PV Institute, these prestigious awards recognise the best peer-reviewed student and ECR papers in the conference program. Each prize is valued at $1,000.

Best Student Paper:

Zhiwen Zheng (UNSW Sydney), "Outdoor photoluminescence imaging under concentrated sunlight"

Best Early Career Researcher Paper:

Arthur Julien (UNSW Sydney), "PL and EL image analysis via statistical modelling to study perovskite solar cell homogeneity"

Muriel Watt Award

Supported by ITP Renewables, valued at $1,000, this award recognises the most outstanding paper by a female Honours, Masters, or PhD student.

Tanushree JB Nath (UNSW Sydney), "Contactless series resistance imaging of solar cells with line-scan luminescence: A quantitative Aqproach"

ACAP PV Devices Award

Proudly supported by ACAP, this $750 prize recognising the best student paper in the PV Devices and REDI streams.

Oliver Lindsay (University of Queensland)

"Designing multi-phase systems for single-component organic photovoltaics"

REDI Award

Supported by the APVI with contribution from ACAP, this is awarded to the best student paper in the Renewable Energy Data and Integration (REDI) stream. Prize value: $750.

Debby Ramadhani (UNSW Sydney), "Dynamic Sky View Factor Computation for Enhanced PV Temperature Prediction in a Terrain-Shaded Site"

Monica Oliphant Award

Supported by Exemplary Energy, this $500 award is for the best poster by a female Honours, Masters, or PhD student.

Anh Vu Phuong Ho (Swinburne University of Technology), "Machine learning assisted contactless series resistance characterisation of solar cell"

RSC Energy Advances PV Devices Award

Supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry Energy Advances journal, this $500 prize is for an outstanding poster in PV device research.

Jose Manuel Lobo (Monash University), "Mapping the LCoE of deployable lightweight PV across Australia for commercial-scale applications"

APVI Reverse Poster Award

A crowd-favourite tradition: this $250 prize is awarded by poster presenters themselves, recognising the attendee who asks the most insightful and constructive questions during the session.

Professor Renate Egan and James Hazelton

APSRC Solar Fun Run winners

A light-hearted but cherished part of APSRC culture.

Winners: Sijin Wang and Marnie Shaw

Recognising Australia’s solar leaders of tomorrow

All APSRC awards require the submission of a peer-reviewed abstract, with finalists assessed on the quality of both their written work and their oral or poster presentation. The recipients represent the next generation of scientists and engineers shaping Australia’s solar future – and ACAP is proud to continue supporting their development through funding, training, and collaboration.

ACAP extends its sincere thanks to the conference organisers, stream chairs, reviewers, UQ, volunteers, and the APVI coordination team for delivering another outstanding APSRC. Events like this are essential in strengthening Australia’s leadership in solar innovation.

Congratulations to all our winners!