Professor Raina MacIntyre, Professor Con Doolan, Dr Charitha de Silva, Mr Prateek Bahl, Dr Abrar Chughtai and Mr. Shovon Bhattacharjee. Image: UNSW

The UNSW research team- U-Breathe, has been selected as a finalist for the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research. This Eureka prize is awarded to a team integrated of two or more disciplines that led to an outstanding research outcome. The multidisciplinary team U-Breathe consists of several faculties who studied the spread of airborne pathogens through respiratory droplets and how effective various types of cloth masks were in keeping their wearer safe against these pathogens.

U-Breathe - Finalist 2021 Eureka Prize for excellence

The team disproved a mistaken theory about the spread of the virus long before airborne transmission was accepted. Video: Australian Museum

The  interdisciplinary team is composed of researchers from UNSW Engineering- School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (Mr. Prateek Bahl, Dr Charitha de Silva and Professor Con Doolan), Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, Faculty of Medicine (Mr. Shovon Bhattacharjee, Professor Raina MacIntyre) and the School of Population Health at UNSW (Dr. Abrar Ahmad Chughtai ) who collaborated to investigate respiratory flows and masks.