FEIT PhD Lab to Launch Finalists

The 2026 FEIT Graduate Research Showcase demonstrated what becomes possible when doctoral researchers are supported to think not only about discovery, but also about translation, commercialisation and impact.

Through the inaugural FEIT PhD Lab to Launch program, six finalist teams transformed complex research into compelling propositions addressing challenges across health, environmental monitoring, artificial intelligence, research productivity and emotional wellbeing.

FEIT PhD Lab to Launch Finalists at the Graduate Research Showcase

Wednesday 26 August 2026

First place - Xanthe Lowe-Brown, for MoodDJ, an emotion-regulation intervention for music-streaming platforms

Second place - Xiaoyi Hu, for a thermal multispectral sensor system using machine learning to support non-invasive skin cancer detection

Third place - Chia-Chun Pan and Yu-Hsi Chen, for scalable, pixel-level metasurface sensors supporting environmental and health monitoring

Fourth place - Ron Shaharit, for LLM Lab, making GPU-cluster AI model serving accessible without command-line expertise

Fifth place - Qi Kong and Liangjue Zhu for ScholarFlow, an AI-assisted platform for literature discovery and research-gap identification

Sixth place - Tian Li and Qingtan Shen, for process-driven AI-agent development and monitoring

Together, the finalists received $70,000 through the FEIT POC Innovation-to-Market Fund to support the next stages of company formation and commercialisation. Just as importantly, they leave the program with stronger connections to mentors, industry, investors and the wider University innovation ecosystem.