Prof Alan Duffy

About Alan

Professor Alan Duffy is Pro-Vice Chancellor of Flagship Initiatives at Swinburne University of Technology, where he brings together research teams with industry and government across sectors including hydrogen, renewable technologies, AI, space and aerospace, MedTech, and health innovation. He was the inaugural Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute at Swinburne and is a Chief Investigator in the $35 million ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

His scientific work spans the extraordinary — from modelling entire universes on supercomputers to understand how galaxies form within dark matter clouds, to co-founding mDetect, a company that uses cosmic particles to scan through rock for mineral exploration, identify structural weaknesses in tailings dams, and detect subsidence beneath critical infrastructure. He is also a co-founder and CEO of that spin-off company, born directly from his dark matter research. SABRE, the world's first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere, sits at the bottom of an active gold mine in Victoria — and Alan is part of the team behind it.

For event organisers seeking a speaker who makes complex science genuinely accessible, Alan is a regular face on Network Ten's The Project and The Today Show, with a proven ability to translate frontier research into conversations that resonate with general audiences. Science communicators, innovation forums, sustainability conferences, and technology summits will find his material both rigorous and immediately engaging.