Fiona Beck

Fiona Beck is an Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow at the School of Engineering, Australian National University (ANU). She is affiliated with the ANU College of Systems & Society and the Energy research cluster. Her research focuses on advancing clean energy transitions through nanophotonic technologies and interdisciplinary decarbonization solutions.

Education: A/Prof Beck holds a MSci in Applied Physics from the University of Glasgow (2006) and a PhD in Engineering from ANU (2011). She has held prestigious fellowships, including a Marie Curie Fellowship (2012) and an ARC DECRA (2018).

Research Interests: Her work spans nanophotonics, plasmon-assisted photochemistry, solar hydrogen generation, and policy frameworks for the hydrogen economy. She leads projects on light-matter interactions for renewable energy applications and chairs ANU’s Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific (ZCEAP) Hydrogen Fuels initiative.

Recent Articles: Fiona’s recent work examines hydrogen certification, cost-competitiveness of green/blue hydrogen, and EU-Australia hydrogen trade dynamics. Her 2024 studies on plasmon-assisted CO₂ reduction and metasurface photochemistry highlight her technical contributions, while policy-focused 2023/2024 papers address decarbonization uncertainties and regulatory challenges.

Awards & Recognition: Recipient of the WEF Young Scientist (2018), ANU Teaching Excellence awards (2018–2022), and FHEA (2018).

Grants & Projects: Principal Investigator/Co-Investigator on multiple grants, including HILT hydrogen supply modeling (2022), META-ACTIVE metasurface R&D (2021), and ZCEAP Grand Challenge (2018). She manages the ANU Photo-electrochemical Characterisation Facility funded via MEC (2016).