Rate My Professor Behnam Akhavan

Associate Professor Behnam Akhavan is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He heads the Plasma Bio-Engineering Laboratory at the School of Engineering and the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI). Akhavan obtained his PhD in Advanced Manufacturing from the University of South Australia in 2015. His career includes a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and Fraunhofer Institute of Microtechnology in Germany from 2014 to 2015, followed by roles at the University of Sydney: Research Associate in the School of Physics (2015-2018), Research Fellow in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (2018-2021), and Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering (2021-2022). He joined the University of Newcastle in 2022 as Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, and holds an ongoing honorary Senior Lecturer position at the University of Sydney School of Physics.

Akhavan's research focuses on plasma surface engineering, bio-engineering, biomaterials, biomedical engineering, functional materials, and composite and hybrid materials, with applications in healthcare such as bone-integrating implants and antimicrobial surfaces. He has authored over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, garnering more than 3,700 citations. Key publications include "Electric fields control the orientation of peptides irreversibly immobilized on radical-functionalized surfaces" (Nature Communications, 2018), "A review of biomimetic surface functionalization for bone-integrating orthopedic implants: Mechanisms, current approaches, and future directions" (Progress in Materials Science, 2019), "Radical-functionalized plasma polymers: Stable biomimetic interfaces for bone implant applications" (Applied Materials Today, 2019), and "Hydrogel-Solid Hybrid Materials for Biomedical Applications Enabled by Surface-Embedded Radicals" (Advanced Functional Materials, 2020). His contributions have earned him the ARC DECRA Fellowship (2020), Engineers Australia Most Innovative Engineers Award (2020), Sydney Nano Best Publication Award (2021), Coatings Award (2017, MDPI), and The Royal Society Science Conference Award (2017).