Tim Dargaville is a polymer materials scientist with a background in chemistry. He completed his BSc (Hons) degree at the University of Melbourne before becoming involved in polymer research through work with one of Australia’s preeminent scientists and co-inventor of the plastic banknotes, Professor David Solomon. After two years with the Solomon group and a three-year stint with the Melbourne biotech company Mimotopes Pty Ltd, he undertook a PhD in Polymer Chemistry at the University of Queensland under the supervision of Professor David Hill investigating the effects of high energy radiation on fluoropolymers.
This led to a post-doctoral position at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2003 and 2006 where he worked with Dr Mat Celina in a multi-disciplinary team investigating the piezoelectric fluoropolymers as large, light-weight primary telescope mirror materials, and testing their performance in the simulated highly radiative environment of the low Earth orbit. In 2006, Dr Dargaville returned to Australia to undertake a position at the Queensland University of Technology where he continued his passion for polymers by developing new polymeric materials for biomedical applications. In 2016 he was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship. Outside of research, he is active in consulting and teaching undergraduate chemistry. He has published over 55 research publications in international journals.