Our People

Mary Hackett

Independent Director

Independent Director, Chair of the Board, Audit & Risk Committee Member

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Pete Di Bona

Independent Director

Independent Director

Pete is an Independent Non-Executive Director on the FEnEx CRC Board.  Pete’s professional career spans 30+ years in the global energy sector with a focus on the commercial development of gas and LNG projects in Europe, West Africa, Australia, US, Kazakhstan and the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to leaving Chevron he was GM of Domestic Gas Marketing responsible for the start-up and development of Chevron’s Australian domestic gas business. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and co-founder of WA-based start-ups Hydrogen Developments Ltd and Future Gas Solutions Pty Ltd. Pete has a PhD in Earth Science from Flinders University and completed post-doctoral research at Curtin University.

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Susie Smith

Independent Director

Independent Director, Commercialisation and Strategic Communications Committee Chair, Nominations and Remuneration Committee Member

Elected to the FEnEx CRC Board in 2020, Susie brings deep executive and board experience in corporate strategy, public affairs, and sustainability. As Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, she leads national dialogue on climate change policy, providing analysis to shape Australia’s transition to net zero emissions by 2050 and fostering collaboration between industry, government, and researchers.

Susie currently serves on the South Australian Premier’s Climate Change Council and has advised the Australian Government at the highest levels, including as a member of the 4-person ‘King Review’ expert panel on low-emissions technology and as a Ministerial appointed member of the independent Climate Change Authority. A former Director of CRC CARE, Susie is passionate about harnessing science, innovation, and industry partnerships to deliver practical solutions and build resilient, sustainable economies.

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Vanessa (Fernandes) Sullivan

Independent Director

Independent Director, Commercialisation and Strategic Communications Committee Member

Vanessa has strong commercial, project development and strategy experience gained over 20+ years working across the energy, water and sustainability sectors. This includes as a Climate Change Leader and Utilities Leader at EY and undertaking significant energy market reforms across the supply chain in various senior roles within the private sector and government. Vanessa has led complex transactions in these fields and brought together industry drivers and commercial outcomes whilst defining and delivering sustainable objectives.

Vanessa’s current roles include Non Executive Director with AGL Energy and CSIRO. Vanessa’s pro bono roles include Chair of Centacare, a large NFP that provides disability and family support services, and serving on a Griffith business school advisory board. Vanessa is a member of Chief Executive Women and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

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Chris Clark

Foundation Director

Chris has over 40 years’ experience working in the public sector across a range of different service areas. 

Most recently Chris transferred to the Department of Premier and Cabinet in July 2025 as the Co-ordinator General from the then Department of Jobs Tourism, Science and Innovation. In this role, Chris is responsible for co-ordinating strategic projects and precincts across the State. Prior to this Chris held Deputy Director General roles at the Department of the Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science, and Innovation covering areas of state development, resources management, project facilitation and infrastructure planning.  

Chris Greig

Independent Director

Independent Director

Dr Christopher Greig is a Senior Research Scientist at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, where he also leads the corporate partnerships program. He is a chemical engineer with over 30 years of experience in senior executive and non-executive director roles in Australian and international companies. His experience covers broad exposure in the industrial, mining and energy sectors across privately-owned, listed, and government-owned companies, with activities spanning Australia, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Dr Greig is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and holds a Bachelor of Engineering (with Honours), a Master of Engineering Studies, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering – all from the University of Queensland

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Professor Eric May

Managing Director & Chief Executive

CEO and Managing Director, Nominations and Remuneration Committee Member, Audit and Risk Committee Member and Commercialisation and Strategic Communications Committee Member 

Eric May is Managing Director of the Future Energy Exports (FEnEx) CRC and was named the 2021 Western Australian Scientist of the Year. His research team works closely with industry, conducting projects in hydrogen liquefaction, LNG production and decarbonisation, gas separations, CCS and fluid property prediction. Eric was awarded the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year as part of the 2012 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science. In 2017, he co-established Gas Capture Technologies Pty Ltd, a spin-out company for patented technologies to capture methane from coal mines, land-fill gas and other sources. Launched in 2020, the FEnEx CRC brings together 35 industry, government and university partners with resources of $163 million to conduct industrial-scale research that supports LNG and Hydrogen exports from Australia.

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Professor Michael Johns

Research Director (University of Western Australia)

Mike Johns has been conducting research regards the application of magnetic resonance for over two decades, covering a very wide remit from food to oil and gas engineering.  Mike completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge in 1999 and was a Reader in Engineering Colloids at the University of Cambridge before relocating to a Chair in Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2011.  At UWA he co-leads the Fluid Science and Resources Research Group¹ which houses over 70 research workers.   He currently develops methods to characterise oilfield emulsions, oil contamination in discharge water, shales, early detection of fouling in desalination modules and para-hydrogen content of liquid hydrogen. He has published over 220 international peer-reviewed papers, has an H-index of 39, holds several patents and has participated in three spin-off companies.  He serves on the executive committee of the Ampere Society for Spatially-resolved Magnetic Resonance (previously as chair) and from 2015-2018 was Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at UWA.

¹ http://fsr.ecm.uwa.edu.au/

Chair of Chemical and Process Engineering Fluid Science & Resources Research Group
Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences The University of Western Australia (UWA)

Jill Stajduhar

Chief Operating Officer

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Lindsey Macqueen

Communication Specialist

Communication Specialist

Lindsey is a communications professional with experience in developing engaging written and visual content across print and digital platforms. At FEnEx CRC, Lindsey works collaboratively with the team to deliver on-brand communications and marketing materials that support the company’s mission to future-proof Australia’s energy exports.

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Glenn Byrne

KETH Senior Project Manager

David Montgomery

KETH Technical Project Manager

David Montgomery is a Chartered Chemical Engineer with experience across industrial projects and operations, including 17yrs at bp, where he held senior engineering, project and transformation roles and contributed to the development of major hydrogen projects across the global portfolio, including H2Kwinana at the former bp Kwinana refinery.

David brings a collaborative, delivery-focused approach to KETH, working across engineering, commercial, regulatory and industry interfaces to help turn the facility from concept into reality. He is passionate about establishing a purpose-built hydrogen facility in Western Australia that gives industry, researchers and the future workforce practical access to hydrogen technology, building the skills, capability and confidence needed to support the state’s future energy export industries.

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Jeh-Sheng Lee

Program Manager

Program Manager

Coming from an administrative background, Jeh-Sheng uses his extensive experience with Customer Relationship Management tools to manage the progress of FEnEx CRC research and PhD projects, and provides support between industry and university partners to achieve results.

Dr. Corey Baker

Program Lead 1 (Experienced Industry Professional)

Corey Baker is a Chartered Chemical Engineer with over a decade of experience in the energy sector. He holds a PhD in Chemical and Process Engineering from the University of Western Australia, where he specialised in Advanced Thermodynamics in natural gas systems. His doctoral research led to the publication of seven papers and the development of ThermoFAST, a multiphase equilibrium calculator for natural gas and LNG, which is now widely used in both research and industry.

Dr Baker has over seven years of operational experience across offshore conventional oil & gas, oil refining, LNG, decarbonisation, and decommissioning. His roles have included facility surveillance, supply chain optimisation, and management system engineering. Currently, he supports several Oil & Gas Joint Ventures in Australia, in both commercial and technical capacities.

Passionate about advancing the energy sector, Dr. Baker combines his research and development expertise with industry insight to drive innovation and operational excellence.

Craig Buckley

John Curtin Distinguished Professor

Professor Craig Buckley is a John Curtin Distinguished Professor in Physics and Astronomy at Curtin University. He leads the Hydrogen Energy research at Curtin University and is recognised internationally for his work on hydrogen storage materials. Since 1994 he has held various research positions in the UK, USA and Australia prior to being awarded a continuing position at Curtin University.

He is the Australian Executive Committee member on the International Energy Agency (IEA) Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program (TCP) and is an Australian expert on the IEA Hydrogen TCP Task 40 Hydrogen Energy Storage and Conversion. Throughout his career he has been a lead/co-investigator on over $150 M of research funding. Professor Buckley is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics and has published over 250 scientific papers in peer reviewed journal, which have attracted over 10,000 citations. His research expertise is mainly focussed on hydrogen storage and structure determination of materials.

Associate Professor Saif Al Ghafri

Queensland Program Lead – LNG and Hydrogen (CQUniversity Australia)

Associate Professor Saif Al Ghafri is a chemical and process engineer at CQUniversity Australia with internationally recognised expertise in LNG, hydrogen, and cryogenic energy systems. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, with research focused on hydrogen liquefaction and storage, cryogenic cooling systems, thermophysical property measurement, and process modelling across LNG, CCUS and hydrogen value chains.

He has authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal publications, including highly cited work in Energy & Environmental Science, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Energy, and Fuel, and has authored numerous major technical reports for industry and government. Since 2017,  Al Ghafri has secured more than $8 million in competitive and industry research funding, supporting large-scale projects with partners such as Woodside, INPEX, Baker Hughes, Fortescue Future Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Al Ghafri has been actively involved with the Future Energy Exports CRC for several years, contributing to LNG and hydrogen research programs spanning hydrogen liquefaction, boil-off gas modelling, ortho-para hydrogen conversion, mixed-refrigerant systems, and cryogenic property measurement. His work has supported both fundamental research and engineering-scale solutions relevant to Australia’s future energy infrastructure.

He also holds adjunct academic appointments at Imperial College London and The University of Western Australia, supporting international and national collaboration in cryogenic and hydrogen technologies. As Queensland Program Lead for the Future Energy Exports CRC, Al Ghafri works with industry, government, and research partners to deliver LNG and hydrogen research programs that advance scalable, low-emissions technologies for Australia’s future energy exports.

Professor Markus Stumptner

Program Lead 3 (University of South Australia)

Markus Stumptner is Chair of Computing at UniSA where he leads the Industrial AI Research Concentration, working at the junction of AI, Software Engineering and Data Management.  He has held professorships in Austria and Australia and published over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He has extensive experience in industrial data integration and interoperability,  AI applications for decision support in configuration, design and diagnostics, as well as Natural Language Understanding Ontologies.  He is a fellow of the International Society of Engineering Asset Management (ISEAM), and has been working on industrial data and information systems standards since 2004, including in ISO TC108/SC5, ISO TC184/WG6, and IEEE.  He has been a member of the Australian Computer Society AI Steering Committee since 2001.  He is currently Co-CTO of MIMOSA, a not-for-profit industry trade association dedicated to development and adoption of open, supplier-neutral IT and IM standards for physical asset lifecycle management.

Professor Peta Ashworth

Program Lead 4 (Curtin University)

Professor Peta Ashworth OAM is the Director of Curtin University’s Institute for Energy Transition. She is a renowned expert in energy, communication, stakeholder engagement, and technology assessment. Professor Ashworth has researched public attitudes towards climate and energy technologies, including wind, carbon capture and storage (CCS), solar photovoltaic, storage, geothermal and hydrogen, for almost two decades. An accomplished speaker and educator, she actively promotes energy literacy globally and contributes to policy briefings and educational events.

Prior to joining Curtin University, Professor Ashworth was the Director of the Andrew N. Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership, and Chair in Sustainable Energy Futures at The University of Queensland (UQ). She was also Chair of the Queensland Hydrogen Taskforce and is a member of CSIRO Hydrogen Mission Advisory Board. Professor Ashworth brings over thirty years’ experience working in a range of senior management, consulting and research roles.

Bruce Norris

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Bruce is a Research Fellow with the Department of Chemical Engineering at UWA. His research focuses on quantifying fugitive methane emissions associated with LNG production, and managing the risks associated with gas hydrates in subsea energy developments. The goal throughout this research is to assist industry in optimising their operational and design philosophies with a view of lowering cost, improving safety, and reducing the carbon intensity of energy production.

Mauricio Di Lorenzo

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow

Dr Mauricio Di Lorenzo is a research scientist with 20+ year experience in R&D applied to oil and gas production. His technical background includes multiphase flow in pipelines and porous media, thermodynamics of fluids and interfaces and plant and laboratory design and instrumentation.

Prior to joining the FEnEx CRC, in his role of Principal Research Engineer at the CSIRO, he led multidisciplinary teams to develop new solutions to flow assurance problems in deep water gas fields, based on a wide range of expertise including laboratory experimentation, numerical modelling, and oil-field chemistry. He also managed several research and commercial project in collaboration with universities, government agencies and industry partners in the energy sector.

Mauricio started his career in his home country, working for Intevep, the R&D branch of PDVSA, the national oil company in Venezuela, where he contributed to the development of novel chemistries and methods to increase well productivity and open new markets for extra-heavy oils.
With his appointment to the FEnEx CRC, Mauricio will contribute with his broad technical and project management experience to the efforts to decarbonize the energy resources and develop the hydrogen industry of the future. Mauricio has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Western Australia, a Master degree in Physics from the University of California, San Diego, and a Bachelor degree in Physics from Simon Bolivar University.

Rebecca Morgan

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow

Dr Rebecca Morgan is a Research Fellow in the Industrial AI Research Centre at UniSA. Her expertise lies in industrial integration and interoperability and model-driven visualisation for understanding complex systems. Over the last five years, she has been involved in supporting enterprise integration and interoperability through facilitating understanding of complex, evolving systems via model-driven information visualisation. She completed her PhD in 2022 on the topic “VizDSL: A Visual Domain Specific Language for Modelling Visualisation Processes”. Her PhD research was heavily based on industrial requirements identified through collaboration between Industrial AI and the OIIE.

During her subsequent employment as a postdoctoral research fellow in Industrial AI, she has been heavily involved in the design, development and testing of a model-based, goal-driven framework for self-adaptive systems in collaboration with the DST Group and the University of Wollongong.

Rebecca has made significant contributions to the state of the art in her research area through the publication of several high-quality conference papers in the fields of information systems engineering, conceptual modelling and distributed computing. The publication “A Model-Driven Approach for Visualisation Processes using VizDSL” received the award for Best Student Paper at APCCM 2019. She has also received the DAIRNet Women in AI scholarship to attend the inaugural ADSTAR Summit in 2022.

Matt Selway

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow

Matt Selway is a Research Fellow in the Industrial AI Research Centre at the University of South Australia and lead of the Australian OIIE Interoperability Laboratory. Matt is a Computer Scientist and Software Engineer who specialises in finding the right-level of abstraction to model complex, real-world problems and implement solutions. His research has addressed knowledge capture and linking for Domain Specific (Technical) Language Understanding, process modelling, and data integration and interoperability. In addition, Matt has explored software system architectures for enabling digital ecosystems.

Over the last 5 years, Matt has contributed to interoperability and digital transformation projects in the Oil & Gas industry, working with diverse partners such as Advisian, BP, PdMA, and Yokogawa Electric. These projects have investigated standards-based interoperability in Industry 4.0 and Digital Twins using models for Asset Lifecycle Management as the means of federating disparate information sources in industrial systems via mappings between standards. His work has spanned different areas for the construction and maintenance of Digital Twins, including the representation and exchange of engineering requirements, equipment and product model information, Condition-based Maintenance data, and asset installation work.

The investigation of standards-based interoperability for industry has led to Matt’s involvement in industry specifications and standards development. In this capacity, Matt has facilitated several working groups: eliciting requirements from industry experts, subsequently developing specifications and standards, and prototyping technical aspects in software. Matt is currently a member of the Australian mirror committee for ISO/TC 184 “Automation systems and integration”, which helps give Australia a voice in current and emerging standards for industrial Digital Twins.

Emma D’Antoine

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow, Curtin University

Curtin University

Dr Emma D’Antoine recently completed her PhD researching psychosocial risk factors for offshore oil and gas workers, passed in September 2024 and gained a Chancellor of the University’s Commendation for: Experience in recruiting for qualitative research, conducting focus groups, one-to-one interviews, analysis of qualitative research through NVivo, identifying patterns and themes and using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. During the last year she has been employed as a Sessional Academic by the School of Psychology at Curtin University. She is currently based at the Curtin Institute for Energy Transition, researching the views of a range of stakeholders from industry, government, academic and not for profit organisations on the challenges and opportunities of the energy transition. This involves NVivo analysis of qualitative survey data, participant recruitment, interviews, interview transcription and reporting of results via reports and manuscripts. Her academic background is in Psychology and Human Rights, but her personal interests also lie in these fields.

Mahboobeh Shahbazi

FEnEx CRC Foundation Fellow

Mahboobeh’s research career has centred on developing new and efficient methods to synthesise a variety of functional materials including superconductors and magnetocaloric materials and their applications such as for MRI and fusion reactors, hydrogen liquefaction, and green hydrogen production systems. She is passionate about understanding the fundamental relationships between material structure, physical and electronic properties of materials and, accordingly, improving their performance in practical applications.

Within QUT’s Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, and the Centre for Materials Science, Mahboobeh’s research focuses on advanced fabrication and characterisation methods. These include developing novel high-temperature superconducting materials and magnetic materials which are necessary for commercial and environmental advances in the transport, medical and energy industries. In addition, she has a deep understanding of the measurement and characterisation of superconducting and magnetic properties using Physical Property Measurement Systems including magnetic measurements, Angular dependence of magnetoresistance, and transport properties at low temperatures and high magnetic fields.

Mahboobeh received her PhD from the University of Wollongong, Australia, in 2014 with a major in materials science. After graduating, she joined QUT where she followed her research studies on a variety of topics including solar cells, superconductors, and magnetic materials. In 2017, Mahboobeh was awarded an Advance Queensland Fellowship in partnership with Siemens. In addition, Mahboobeh collaborates effectively with Australian and overseas superconductivity experts and is a co-investigator with her collaborative network at The University of Queensland investigating Nanostructure engineered low activation superconductors for fusion energy. Both projects focus on developing and characterising superconducting components including iron chalcogenides and MgB₂ wires/cables for application in superconducting motors/generators, MRI, and fusion reactors.

QUT profile: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/mahboobeh.shahbazi

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.sg/citations?user=lv81LDwAAAAJ&hl=en