Scientist, educator and entrepreneur Dr. Erol Harvey has made significant contributions to Australia through his world-leading export-oriented microfluidic engineering company MiniFAB, his distinguished academic career and his unwavering support for research commercialisation and entrepreneurship.
He formed the Small Technologies Cluster, an incubator supporting commercialisation of new high-value medical device technology and has served on many Government and Academy of Technology & Engineering selection panels and working groups. Dr Harvey gained a PhD in Plasma and Laser Physics from Monash University and worked as a researcher in Oxford, UK, before joining his first startup to commercialise laser micromachining.
He returned to Australia to become a Professor of Microtechnology at Swinburne University and co-founded MiniFAB in 2002 where he was CEO until 2018. In 2019 MiniFAB was acquired by Schott GmbH. He is a mentor to companies in The MedTech Actuator and has served on the boards of Co-Operative Research Centre, university spin-out companies, ARC Centre of Excellence, the NCRIS-supported National Imaging Facility, and membership based Not-for-Profit entities.
In 2018 he was the Clunies Ross award winner for Entrepreneurship and is currently Head of Strategy and Translation at the Bionics Institute Australia.
[August 2020]