Dr Tim Lau is a Lecturer for Sustainable Energy at The University of South Australia, with over two decades of research and industry experience in sustainable energy systems and thermo-fluid systems. Prior to joining UniSA, he was a Senior Researcher at the University of Adelaide and a Research Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, California).
His research aims to address the growing need for sustainable energy, and was formerly an engineering consultant for a building services consulting firm, focusing on environmentally sustainable design in buildings. He is currently involved in a range of projects applying state-of-the-art knowledge to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions from buildings through reducing heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC-R) energy consumption, while also increasing indoor environment quality.
He also has extensive experience in fluid flow systems relevant to a range of practical and natural systems. Utilising a combination of experimental tools, laser diagnostics and computational modelling, his research aims to unlock the fundamental knowledge of heat transfer and fluid dynamic systems, and in particular, two-phase flows and particle-laden flows. He aims to apply this knowledge to gain better understanding of

dispersion of droplets and particles for air quality and airborne disease control;
two phase flows relevant to industrial heat transfer applications (such as concentrated solar system, industrial process heat applications and refrigeration systems);
 biomimetic flows; and
flows within the built environment.