Dr Jiajia Zhou is a Professor at the Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices (IBMD), University of Technology Sydney. She is internationally recognised for her outstanding research in upconversion photonics, luminescent nanothermometry, and optical bioimaging, advancing nanophotonic technologies for quantitative biological measurements and biomedical applications. Her interdisciplinary research integrates nanotechnology, photophysics, advanced microscopy, and biomedical engineering to develop next-generation optical probes, imaging platforms, and sensing technologies for quantitative measurements of cellular metabolism and rapid in vitro diagnostics of disease biomarkers. More recently, she has extended these technologies to the rapid detection of bacterial pathogens and the investigation of bacterial responses to antibiotic treatment through nanoscale temperature sensing, aiming to provide new insights into the fundamental mechanisms underlying antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Professor Zhou currently holds an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leadership, and is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC). She has received prestigious awards, including the 2024 Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal, the 2022 David Syme Research Award, the 2019 Sturges Prize, and the 2018 Nanomaterials Young Investigator Award. She was also a finalist for the 2020 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in Science and the 2019 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher. Professor Zhou has published more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in Nature, Nature Photonics, Nature Methods, Nature Reviews Physics, and Nature Communications. Her research has attracted over 10,000 citations.