Gerhard (Gerry) F. Swiegers

Gerhard (Gerry) F. Swiegers is an Australian Research Council Industry Laureate Fellow at the University of Wollongong in Australia. He received a PhD in 1991 from the University of Connecticut in the USA. Following Post-Doctoral work at the Australian National University, he joined the University of Wollongong in 1995. During 1998-2009 he was a Principal Research Scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In 2010 he returned to the University of Wollongong, specializing in the commercialization of fundamental research and bridging the academia-to-industry gap. Professor Swiegers has founded 7 spin-off companies and licensed / sold 3 new technologies in the last 20 years. His commercialization activities have attracted around $320 million in private investment thus far, and numerous awards, including two DuPont Innovation awards. He has published 2 scholarly books, 169 peer-reviewed scientific publications, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and 66 patent families, comprising 436 individual patent applications. He has participated in $24.5 million of successful competitive academic grant funding. His inventions have found use in the pharmaceutical, apparel, casino chip, agricultural, automobile, energy, and other industries.