Jiali (Maggie) Zhai

Dr Jiali (Maggie) Zhai is an Associate Professor of chemistry in School of Science, and is one of the HDR managers within the school. Her research seeks to solve outstanding biomedical problems by developing responsive and composite nanomaterials and innovate in value added foods by advancing food colloidal systems.

Dr Jiali (Maggie) Zhai obtained her PhD at Monash University in 2013. Before joining RMIT, she was awarded the CSIRO Office of Chief Executive Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2015. Her primary research interests include lipid nanoparticle drug delivery systems, mRNA delivery, hydrogels and microgels, amphiphile self-assembly, liquid crystals, ionic liquids, and nano-bio interactions. Her research also takes an applied and multidisciplinary approach to solve outstanding biomedical problems such as nanotechnology-enabled targeted drug delivery, biomedical imaging, protein and gene delivery, and functional food colloids. She has been awarded two ARC Discovery Projects, and one mRNA Victoria grant to innovate in lipid nanoparticle drug delivery technology. 

In 2020, Maggie was awarded the Victoria Fellowship to undertake a study mission of designing super-swollen lipid nanoparticles for protein and gene delivery in four European countries and two European synchrotron facilities. In 2023, she was awarded the ANSTO Research Award. She is also a recipient of the Australian Academy of Science European Mobility Grant 2025. Maggie has strong expertise in synchrotron-based techniques such as small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS, bioSAXS) and circular dichroism (CD) techniques, which she uses to develop new methods to study self-assembly in biologically relevant systems, and the structures of mRNAs and proteins at membrane interface.

Maggie currently serves as the Chair of the Australian Synchrotron User Advisory Committee (UAC) and the Treasurer of the Australasian Colloids and Interface Society.