Rate My Professor Pingan Song

Professor Pingan Song serves as Full Professor of High-Performance Polymers and Associate Head of School (Research) in the School of Science, Engineering and Digital Technologies at the University of Southern Queensland. He earned a BSc from Anhui University, an MSc from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a DNatSc from Zhejiang University, completing his PhD in Chemistry there in 2009. His career commenced at Zhejiang A&F University as Lecturer in 2009, with promotions to Associate Professor in 2011 and Full Professor in 2016. Joining the University of Southern Queensland as Senior Research Fellow in 2016, he was awarded the ARC Future Fellowship in 2019, promoted to Associate Professor in 2020, and to Full Professor in 2021.

Professor Song's research focuses on polymeric materials and polymer composites, including compatibilisation, strengthening, toughening, and structure-property correlations; fire retardants and coatings; fire-warning, strain, and humidity sensors; and bioderived materials, bioplastics, and micro/nano-plastics treatment. As lead or co-Chief Investigator, he has obtained over 30 grants exceeding AU$15 million, encompassing ARC Future Fellowship, ARC IM Industry Fellowship, ARC Discovery Projects, ARC Linkage Projects, ARC Research Hub, ARC LIFE, and National Natural Science Foundation of China projects. He has authored over 360 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious journals such as Science, Advanced Materials, Matter, ACS Nano, Nano Letters, Advanced Functional Materials, and Macromolecules, accumulating more than 32,200 citations and an h-index of 106. Notable works include "Phosphorus-containing flame retardant epoxy thermosets: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives" (Progress in Polymer Science, 2021), "Flame retardant polymeric nanocomposites through the combination of nanomaterials and conventional flame retardants" (Progress in Materials Science, 2020), "High-Performance Polymeric Materials through Hydrogen-Bond Cross-Linking" (Advanced Materials, 2020), and "Lignin-derived bio-based flame retardants toward high-performance sustainable polymeric materials" (Green Chemistry, 2020). His accolades include Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2025), ARC IM Industry Fellow (2025), ARC Future Fellow (2019), Fellow of Queensland Academy of Arts and Science (2024), Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2023), and top researcher in chemical and material sciences (general) by The Australian’s 2026 Research magazine. Professor Song is Associate Editor for ACS Applied Polymer Materials, serves on editorial boards of Composites Part B: Engineering, Journal of Materials Science & Technology, and others, has filed over 20 patents, and delivered over 30 invited talks including plenary and keynotes.