CSIROPEDIA - Key Persons
Stub entry. Contributions wanted. Adrian Baddeley is a leading researcher in spatial statistics and a Science Fellow with CSIRO. He […]
Biography Ahmed Abdullah Azad was born in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on 17 November 1945. He obtained his BSc with […]
Job Titles:
- Tertiary Education and Early Career Alan Donald Graduated from the University of Sydney With a Bachelor of Veterinary Science ( Honours ) [ ]
Tertiary education and early career Alan Donald graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Honours)
Alan Marchant Downes was born on 6th January 1926 and received his M.Sc. degree from the University of Sydney in […]
Biography Albert Lloyd George Rees was born on 15 January 1916 the youngest of six children of Edith Mary Target, […]
Job Titles:
- Professor Albert Mau Was Born in China in 1942 and Graduated from Pui - Ching [Baptist] Middle School in Hong Kong. He
Professor Albert Mau was born in China in 1942 and graduated from Pui-Ching [Baptist] Middle School in Hong Kong. He […]
Stub entry only. Contributions wanted. Albert Rovira was Chief Research scientist of the CSIRO Division of Soils. He was elected […]
Professor Lascelles was an immunologist and physiologist best known for his work on immunity to mastitis. He contributed to scientific knowledge on the origin, characteristics and mechanisms of transfer of antibody in mammary glands, as well as the transfer of immunoglobulins into colostrum.
Biography Alexander John Nicholson was born at Blackall, Co Meath, Ireland, on 25th March 1895. His parents had also been […]
Alexander John Nicholson was born at Blackall, Co Meath, Ireland, on 25th March 1895. His parents had also been born in Ireland, although both came from English yeoman families of, at least on his mother's side, powerfully Methodist convictions. His father was a successful designing engineer, his mother a woman of acute and independent mind, and his elder brother an inventive member of the Royal Flying Corps. Of his two younger sisters, Nan, a trained kindergarten teacher, lived in Canberra for some years during the thirties and established the first preschool centre on the northern side of the young city.
The Nicholsons moved to England, where John spent the rest of his childhood. He shared the family bent for mechanisms and gadgets and the exciting new motor cycles, cars and aeroplanes, but his special interests were in photography and natural history. He became a member of the Birmingham Field Naturalists' Club (annual subscription one shilling) when twelve years old and, to balance it, joined the Midland Aero Club at fifteen, although there is no record that he actually flew.
He entered the Waverley Road Secondary School, then remarkable for its new science laboratories, in 1908, and, despite some concern by his masters that he was more interested in natural history than in his formal subjects, matriculated with honours and an entry prize into Birmingham University in 1912.
He graduated BSc in 1915 with First-Class Honours in Zoology, Chemistry as a second subject, and Botany as a minor. He was not impressed with the course in chemistry, which consisted almost entirely in covering the board with structural formulae of dyestuffs, nor with what he termed the ‘necrological approach' to zoology, which was concentrated on comparative anatomy and ignored physiology and the activities of living animals. Still he did get a grounding in classical evolutionary theory.
When the war came John Nicholson, already a member of the University OTC, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery in 1915. He spent most of the next two years instructing - strenuous, because they were only allowed six weeks in which to produce gunners - and the rest of the war on active service in France and Belgium. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, twice mentioned in despatches, and awarded the King's Commendation for bravery. The war left him with a cardiac lesion that limited strenuous activity for the rest of his life, and it was characteristic that even his closest friends did not know of this until after his death.
Early life and education Dr Alfred Howard was born in Melbourne and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) in […]
Biography Andrew Ashley Green was born on 25 December 1946 in Perth, Western Australia. His father Ernest Joseph Green was […]
Biography Anthony Michael Vassallo was born in Johannesburg South Africa on 4th March 1955. He obtained his BAppSc (Hons) in […]
Job Titles:
- Biography Arthur Gaskin Retired in October 1983 After a Long Career With CSIRO, His Last 21 Years As Foundation Chief [ ]
Biography Arthur Gaskin retired in October 1983 after a long career with CSIRO, his last 21 years as foundation Chief
Job Titles:
- General Manager, Science Investment, Strategy and Performance
Biography Professor Brungs is a Rhodes Scholar, with a Doctorate in Inorganic Chemistry from Oxford University, and recipient of the […]
Dr. Dawson graduated in chemistry from the University of Melbourne in 1945 and then took is PhD at Cambridge as […]
Job Titles:
- Contributor to Rainforests
Job Titles:
- Square Kilometre Array Director
Stub entry. Contributions wanted. Brian Boyle is the CSIRO Square Kilometre Array Director. He was elected fellow of the Australian […]
Biography Brian David Sowerby was born in Broken Hill, NSW in June 1943. His father was a police officer who […]
Biography Brian John Myers was born in Toronto, Canada in 1947 and was educated at St Michael's College. He completed […]
Studies and early career Dr Bruce Lee completed a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (Hons) at the University of Sydney
Biography Bruce MacAulay Thomas was born in Melbourne in 1937, and attended Scotch College (1950-55), and the University of Melbourne […]
Biography Catherine Patricia Foley was born in Sydney, NSW on 10 October 1957. Her parents' occupations were accountant and architect. […]
Biography Charles Butt is one of Australia's leading exploration geochemists and regolith geoscientists. He has spent his working career with […]
Biography Christine O'Keefe completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Adelaide in 1981, and a Bachelor of Science […]
Claude Charles Culvenor was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, on 15 May 1925 to Alexander (Pack) and Julia Culvenor. Claude was […]
Colin Adam was an Institute Director and an Acting Chief Executive Officer of CSIRO (2000-2001).
CSIROpedia was conceived, compiled and edited for the first 10 years (2007-2017) by Colin Ward, a former Deputy Chief and CSIRO Fellow. This collection will continue to grow documenting important milestones in CSIRO's history. If you have any of this material in either your Business Unit or personal collections, contact us.
Early life Cyril Angus Appleby was born on 6 July 1928 at Victor Harbor, South Australia, Australia. After completing his […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Dave Abel from CSIRO Mathematics Informatics and Statistics, was the key contributor to the development […]
Early life David Peters was born in England in 1938 and came to Australia as a schoolboy. Tertiary education and
David Henry Solomon was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 19 November 1929. He received an Associate Diploma of Chemistry […]
Biography David Lamb was born in Yeovil, England in 1936. His family background was farming on the paternal side and […]
David Lloyd Topping was born in Pentrefoelas in North Wales on 8 May 1945. He was the only child of […]
Early life Born in 1924, David's childhood and youth was spent in country South Australia, first in Balaklava, a small […]
Job Titles:
- Research Prize by the University of Melbourne
Denis Fletcher Kelsall was a chemical engineer. He was Chief of the CSIRO's Division of Chemical Engineering from 1974-1978, and […]
Denis Watson was a Program Manager, Site OIC and Head of Laboratory in CSIRO Division of Animal Health at Armidale in the 1980s and 1990s.
Biography Dharma Deo Shukla was born in Narainpur, India on 7 February 1942. He obtained a BSc (Ag) from the […]
Biography Diethelm (Diet) Ostry graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Physics from the Australian National University. He spent […]
Donald Charles Gibson was born on 7 July 1940 at Roslyn Hospital in Lindfield, NSW. His father was WHH Gibson, […]
Dr Bertram Thomas Dickson was Chief of the Division of Plant Industry until his retirement in 1951.
Job Titles:
- Dr Brian Walker Is an Honorary Research Fellow at CSIRO Land & Water and an Honorary Professor at the
Biography Dr Brian Walker is an Honorary Research Fellow at CSIRO Land & Water and an Honorary Professor at the […]
In 1951 Ian joined the CSIRO Wool Textile Research Research Laboratory, Biochemistry Unit under the Officer-in-Charge, Dr F G Lennox and remained there until his retirement from Officer-in-Charge in 1989.
Dr John Bannister was the leader of the project which resulted in the SIRO2 gas sensor. He obtained his BMetEng, […]
Dr Karl Föger was born in Stams, Austria on 19 October 1948. He attended primary school in Stams followed by […]
Mark Clements is an Australian botanist and orchidologist, born in 1949. His career spans four decades and in that time, he has discovered about 250 new species of Australian orchids and curated tens of thousands of specimens representing more than 1600 species of Australian native orchids. These specimens are housed in the Australian National Herbarium.
Dr Megan Clark was appointed to the Board of Rio Tinto and stepped down as Chief Executive of CSIRO 20 […]
Dr Sefton Davidson Hamann was born in Christchurch, New Zealand on 8 January 1921; the youngest, by 18 and 20
Dr Sukhvinder Badwal is a world-renowned solid state electrochemist with more than 35 years' research experience in fuel cells, membrane […]
Dr. Allan Walkley made important contributions in a number of fields of research including soil chemistry, hydrometallurgy, and electrochemistry.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Australian National Insect Collection
Dr. Ebbe Nielsen was a pioneer of Australian biodiversity research and Director of the Australian National Insect Collection. He was passionate about […]
Dr Katherine Locock leads the Drug Discovery Chemistry team in the Manufacturing Business Unit of the CSIRO in Melbourne, Australia. […]
Dr. Larry Marshall is a scientist, technology innovator and business leader with more than 25 years' experience in creating new value and impact with science.
Dr. M. C. Franklin was one of Australia's best known livestock scientists.
Dr. Margaret Chattaway was a senior member of the research staff of the Division of Forest Products.
Dr. Wilfred W. Bryan was a leading agricultural scientist. Originally with CSIRO's Division of Plant Industry, Dr. Bryan later transferred […]
Early life Ted Henzell graduated with a B.Agr.Sc. from the University of Queensland in 1952. In the same year he […]
Edward George Bowen was born on 14 January 1911 in the village of Cockett near Swansea, Wales, to George Bowen and Ellen Ann (nee Owen). He was the youngest of four children. Both of his grandfathers had served apprenticeships on clipper ships sailing around the Horn to Pacific ports in Chile and Peru, there to load ore for the busy refineries of Swansea. His father was a steelworker in a Swansea tinplate works, where he folded and flattened red-hot plates into the thin sheet steel needed, a task which required considerable skill and strength. He satisfied a love of music as the organist in the Congregational Chapel in nearby Sketty.
Edward Bowen had a keen mind and, at an early age, developed a lively interest in radio and also in sport, particularly cricket. At the primary school in Sketty, he won a scholarship in 1922 to the Municipal Secondary School in central Swansea. His senior years there coincided with the onset of bleak economic times in South Wales, but fortunately he was successful in again winning a scholarship which enabled him to enter Swansea University College. At first his intention was to concentrate on chemistry, his top subject, but he soon changed to physics and related subjects, a decision he never regretted.
He gained a BSc with first class honours in physics from Swansea University College in 1930, and an MSc on X-rays and the structure of alloys at the University of Wales in 1931 under the direction of Senior Lecturer Dr W Morris Jones, and Professor JV Evans.
It was Professor EJ Evans who, recognising Bowen's intense interest in radio, arranged for him to take a PhD in the Physics Department of King's College (London University) under the direction of Professor EV Appleton. As part of his research, Bowen spent a large part of 1933 and 1934 working with a cathode-ray direction finder at the Radio Research Station at Slough and it was there that he was noticed by RA Watson-Watt and so came to play an important part in the early history of radar. He was awarded his PhD in 1934.
Taffy Bowen had successfully guided the project through the complex years when the design of the telescope was evolving and had overcome other problems of great difficulty to arrive at last at a highly satisfactory result. In the words of UK Professor Fred Hoyle: there is no doubt that a large share of it (the credit) must go to Taffy Bowen. Without him the telescope would have been only a shadow of what it was eventually to become.
Personal
Taffy Bowen retired from CSIRO on 14th January 1971 after 24 years as Chief of the Division of Radiophysics. Bowen's Division of Radiophysics was quite unlike others in CSIRO. It had been founded in 1939, in the utmost secrecy, to work on wartime radar for the fighting services. Several scientists spent the war in the fighting services and when demobilised came to Australia and joined in the remarkable post-war researches that Bowen headed. Two such men were John Paul Wild and John Bolton. The former, who succeeded Bowen as Chief of Division, has this interesting analysis of Bowen as his predecessor:
I was one of several young research scientists who joined the CSIR Radiophysics Laboratory in the early post-war years. The Chief, Taffy Bowen, was firmly in command: young, confident, cheerful and breezy, always optimistic and giving the impression that he knew exactly where he was going. He had supervised the transition of the laboratory from its wartime program of military radar to its new peacetime policy. By the mid 50s the Laboratory's activities had narrowed down to two large programs ‘ cloud physics under Taffy's direction and radio astronomy under Joe Pawsey's. Both programs stood high in international repute.
Taffy then decided to enter the radio astronomy arena himself and set his mind on the construction of a giant radio telescope. Such was our reputation at the time, combined with Taffy's influence and diplomacy in the USA, that half the cost needed to fund this project came from the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations. The major credit for the existence and success of this instrument must go to him.
The other major work which owes much to Taffy is the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). As Chairman of the AAT Board he steered the 3.8 m optical telescope to fruition, again showing his great skill in choosing and supervising the contractors.
The world will remember Taffy firstly as a member of the three-man team that developed radar to help save the day for Britain in 1940 ‘ secondly as the dynamic post-war leader of the Radiophysics Laboratory; and thirdly as the engineer who brought to successful completion two major astronomical instruments of his era.
Stub entry only - contributions wanted Dr. Elizabeth Heij was born in Tasmania, and educated in New Zealand and the
Early life Enid Campbell Plante was born in Albury, New South Wales on 8 October 1918. Enid was Head Prefect […]
Eric Stodden West was the Division of Irrigation Research's Officer-in-Charge from 1924, when it was known as the Commonwealth Citrus Research Station until his retirement in 1956.
Ernest Burgmann was an outspoken champion of individual civil rights whose radicalism sprang from a deeply rooted working-class love of the people and the land. He was driven by his faith to challenge the conservative complacency of Australia and his actions had a profound and far-reaching impact on Australians well beyond the boundaries of his diocese. Burgmann's words and actions hold a promise of extraordinary relevance to Australian society today.
Biography Ezio Rizzardo was born in Onigo, Province of Treviso, Italy on 26 December 1943. He graduated with First-Class Honours […]
Francis Noble Ratcliffe was born at Calcutta, India on 11 January 1904. After graduating with First- Class Honours in Zoology from Oxford University, Dr Ratcliffe spent a year at Princeton University as a Proctor Fellow before coming to Australia to work for CSIRO in 1929.
He first studied the giant fruit bats of the eastern seaboard, then went on to study soil erosion in the inland. These two subjects formed the basis of his classic book Flying Fox and Drifting Sand.
As a member of the Division of Entomology from 1937 to 1949, he worked on termites and pests of stored wheat. He also served for some time with the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC) as a malariologist investigating mosquito control techniques.
In 1949, the Wildlife Section was established under his leadership. In the next ten years he collaborated with Professor Frank Fenner of the Australian National University (ANU) to achieve spectacular success in the control of rabbits by myxomatosis.
Biography Frank Richard Arthur Jorgensen was born on 5 May 1937 in Perth, Western Australia, the eldest son of Marie, […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Fraser Bergersen from CSIRO Plant Industry, was elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
Early life Frederick Charles Pye was born in Darling Point (Sydney) on 18th January 1895 and was very much a
Biography Geoffrey Syme graduated with a PhD in social psychology from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 1973. After […]
Mr. Lightfoot came to Australia in 1906 and joined the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics where he was responsible for establishing the Bureau's Labour and Industrial Branch and extending it to the main industrial centres of the Commonwealth.
Biography Graeme Batley was born 7 January 1941, at Young, New South Wales. His Primary education was at Lane Cove […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Graeme Ellis was Principal Research Officer at CSIRO from 1958 to 1960. He was elected […]
Biography Graeme Caughley was born on 28 September 1937 at Wanganui, New Zealand, into an educated, professional family. He was […]
Graeme Caughley was born on 28 September 1937 at Wanganui, New Zealand, into an educated, professional family. He was the second of three children, and the only son, of John Norman Caughley and Thelma Caughley (nee Keltie). His father was a Branch Manager of the Bank of New Zealand, in Wanganui until 1945, then in Palmerston North until 1955 and then at Eltham. He was also a good mathematician. His mother encouraged Graeme's curiosity and his father took him off on expeditions.
His paternal grandfather, James Caughley, migrated from Ireland at the turn of the century and was Headmaster of Takapau Primary School, Hawkes Bay from 1903 to 1936. He enjoyed children, loved teaching and had a wicked sense of humour, so that he had the ability to get fun out of the children, not to laugh at them but with them. As a boy Graeme knew his grandfather well and may have got his own dry sense of humour from him. Graeme's father was the eldest of four. The second son, James, was a psychologist with the British Army during the Second World War, and subsequently became Chief Psychologist in the Justice Department, Wellington. Graeme saw a lot of him while at university; they had dinner once a week and he was a mentor to Graeme. One of Graeme's two aunts, Nancy Caughley, taught Speech Therapy at the Christchurch Training College and was later a lecturer at the University of Tasmania, Hobart.
On his mother's side his grandfather, Hugh Keltie, was a watchmaker from Tasmania. He settled at Greytown in the Wairarapa, where he eventually had three shops. Graeme's grandmother died young and his mother was brought up by a stepmother, whom she did not like, so Graeme had little contact with his grandfather as he grew up.
Caughley was the Special Commissioner with expertise in matters environmental. His contributions to the modelling that forms the core of the enquiry provided a basis for interpreting such data as were available. During 1990, he read about 260 submissions, went on seven field inspections and attended public hearings in fifteen centres around Australia. From his analyses he recognised that the rate of timber cutting of native forests exceeded the rate of increase and was therefore unsustainable, in the same way as the harvesting of whales had been unsustainable some decades earlier. These conclusions were incorporated into the Interim Report, which was made available for comment. The forest industry objected to these conclusions and demanded that a forestry representative join the Commission and oversee the final version of Caughley's report. He objected to this condition and to what he saw as the obstructive and intransigent attitude of the forest interests. When it was upheld by the Chief Commissioner, Caughley resigned and left for Greenland and a study of Muskox.
Dr. H. E. Dadswell was a pioneer in the field of wood anatomy and Australia's foremost expert in eucalypt anatomy.
Hugh McLeod Gordon was born on 28 March 1909 in Armidale, New South Wales. He died on 23 April 2002, […]
Early life Ian was born in Adelaide on 28 May 1917 and attended the Peters College, Adelaide from 1926 to
Early life Ian Harvey was born in Mackay Queensland in 1929 and lived his early life on a sugar cane […]
I. H. Boas was one of Australia's most successful research directors. It is to him, as much as to anyone else, that the world owes thanks for the fact that paper can now he produced from hardwoods. Everyone else said it was completely impossible. (Ian W. Wark, 1968)
Isabel ‘Joy' Bear was born at Camperdown, Victoria on 4 January 1927, the second eldest child of Isabel Hilda Bear […]
James Arthur Prescott was born on 7 October 1890 at Bolton, Lancashire, England. He was the first of seven children of Joseph Arthur Prescott and his wife, Mary Alice, nee Garsden. His father, Joseph Prescott began adult life as a fitter of textile machinery at the site of installation which took him to Italy, Alsace (then part of Germany) and northern France. His special line of expertise was in machinery for fine spinning, the comber and spinning mule. He rose from fitter to maintenance engineer, to foreman, and to manager in charge of development. In 1897, he was appointed management engineer with the cotton textile firm of Crépy at Lille in northern France and the family, then with three children, moved to that city. Early in 1902, the family returned to Lancashire, this time to Accrington where Joseph was employed by the firm of Howard and Bullough.
James's grandfather, John Prescott, had worked in textiles and had been closely associated with the trade union movement as a member of the Society of Engineers, as also were some of James's uncles and cousins. John Prescott had been secretary of Bolton No 2 Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers from 1858 to 1893 and was Chairman of the strike committee during the strike of iron-workers in 1887. He was succeeded as secretary by his son, Thomas.
Education
James Prescott attended kindergarten at Chalfont Street, Bolton, and then from 1897 to 1901 received his primary education in French at the Ecole Littré , a school under the municipality of the city of Lille. From the prizes awarded to him it is clear that he was a scholar of some merit. He remained fluent in French throughout his life. Following the return to England, and after a year at Spring Hill Elementary School devoted to re-establishing his command of English and gaining familiarity with the Imperial system of weights and measures, he spent the period 1903 to 1908 in secondary education at the Accrington Municipal Secondary School, later to be the Grammar School. Here he was awarded scholarships by the Accrington Co-operative Society and by Bridge Mechanical. His Leaving Scholarship to the University, awarded by the Lancashire County Council, was based on his results at the Higher Alternative Matriculation Examination.
He graduated Bachelor of Science with First-Class Honours in chemistry from the University of Manchester in 1911. This was followed by some months of postgraduate work in organic chemistry on a scholarship under William H Perkin, whose like-named father was widely regarded as the founder of the coal-tar dye industry. Prescott's work related to the extraction of morphine and cocaine from commercial raw materials and was undertaken primarily to provide a basis for commercial development by Burroughs and Wellcome. During this period the teachers who particularly influenced him were WH Perkin whose lucidity was exemplary, Robert Robinson, HB Dixon, Arthur Lapworth and Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann was later to forsake chemistry for the Zionist movement and to become President of Israel, 1949-52. In addition to his research work, Prescott also attended a pioneer course in biochemistry given by Weizmann and took part in a short course of postgraduate lectures on nuclear disintegration given by Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger being the demonstrator.
During the summer of 1912, Prescott spent some weeks at the Agricultural College at Holmes Chapel in Cheshire, recently affiliated with the University of Manchester. Here he made the decision to follow a career in agricultural chemistry.
James Prescott also had a notable association with Scotch College in Adelaide. He was appointed a Member of the Council of Governors in November 1938, became Deputy Chairman in August 1943, Seal Holder in June 1949, and Chairman in June 1953, remaining in that capacity until May 1961. The school laboratories for advanced physics and chemistry, were named the Prescott Laboratories.
He also had an association with adult education in Australia, especially in the University of Adelaide. He was appointed to the Joint Committee of the University and the Workers' Educational Association in 1948. He was appointed to the Board of Adult Education in 1958 when the Department of Adult Education of the University was created. He had also represented the University on the South Australian Committee of the National Films Board.
In 1934, a discussion group named after the aboriginal word for talk amongst people, the Wongana Circle, was formed in Adelaide. Prescott became a member in 1936 and remained an active participant until 1962. The members came from many intellectual walks of life in Adelaide including the university, business, the judiciary, the press and the arts. It included such widely known people as SW Pennycuick from the University Department of Chemistry and Hans Heysen, the painter. Their discussions ranged over a wide field of topics and sometimes included guest speakers. After a gap of some years Prescott attended the 50th Anniversary Dinner in December 1984 and the 50th anniversary in 1986 of his own first meeting in August 1936.
James Arthur Prescott died on 6 February 1987. To honour him, and to remind South Australians in particular of the debt they owe to him, there is a plaque let into the footpath along North Terrace, Adelaide, that reads: James Arthur Prescott, CBE, Founder of Soil Science in Australia, born 1890
Jack Griffiths Davies is best known for his contributions along with Mark Hutton to the development of pasture legumes for northern Australia.
Biography James Richard Vickery was born in Ballarat, Victoria, on July 9 1902. He graduated MSc in biochemistry from the […]
Biography James Tickner holds a BA (Hons 1) in Physics from Oxford University and a PhD in Particle Physics, also […]
Biography Jeff G Ellis was born in Adelaide on 4 May, 1953. He obtained a BAgSc (Hons, 1st class) from […]
Biography Dr Jeremy Burdon obtained his BSc and PhD from the Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia and joined CSIRO […]
Overview William James Peacock was born at Leura, NSW, on 14 December 1937. He graduated BSc (First-Class Honours), University of […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Jim James was a key contributor along with Murray Andrews and Ken Whiteley, to the […]
Early life Joanne grew up in suburban Sydney in a housing commission suburb. She was the middle of three children. […]
Stub entry only. Contributios wanted. John Church Principal Research Scientist from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, received the CSIRO Fellow […]
John Anderson Gilruth was born on 17 February 1871 at Auchmithie, a fishing village near Arbroath, Forfar, Scotland, second child […]
Job Titles:
- Archives
- Director of ANRAO
John Gatenby Bolton was born in Sheffield on 5th June 1922. After going through his local grammar school, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated with honours in 1942 and joined the Royal Navy as a Radar Officer, but was soon recruited into radar research at the then secret Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE). In 1944, Bolton went to sea on the aircraft carrier Unicorn in the Pacific where he became involved in dangerous flight testing and survived a forced landing in a naval fighter.
In Australia, Bolton joined CSIRO whose Radiophysics Laboratory was directed by Taffy Bowen. Radio emissions from the sun had been discovered during the war and there was much activity investigating these by a group led by Joseph Pawsey. There was no shortage of talent in the laboratory and among those who worked there at the time, and were to became famous later, were names like Paul Wild, Wilbur Christiansen, Bernie Mills, Alec Little and Jack Hobart Piddington.
Bolton was reassigned to assist in building equipment for an eclipse expedition to Brazil in the following year. It was a matter of great good fortune for astronomy that the expedition was called off and Bolton was ‘released' to do what he pleased with the equipment they had built. Not withstanding the separation of Bolton from the solar group, his maiden publication in August 1947 deals with the first observations at three well separated frequencies (60, 100 and 200 MHz) of a solar outburst of Type II (as later designated by Wild). Bolton and co-authors correctly attributed the delays in arrival time with decreasing frequencies to the passage of a physical agency upwards through different levels of the corona. They estimated a velocity of almost 1000 km/s, close to that of auroral particles, and noted that an aurora was in fact observed in some parts of Australia a little more than a day after the outburst.
The next chapter in Bolton's story is set in the US where radio astronomy had been taking a back seat compared to the activity in Australia and England in the post war years. The corresponding centre in the US, set up much later, was the MIT Radiation Laboratories headed by Lee DuBridge. Work on microwave devices and measurements was carried out by a battery of distinguished physicists ‘ Bethe, Dicke, Pound, Purcell and Van Vleck, among hundreds of others. Taffy Bowen was one of the key players in the drama of radar in World War II and was personally responsible for carrying an early sample of a ‘magnetron' invented at Birmingham University across the Atlantic to the Radiation Laboratories.
Bolton went to Caltech in January 1955 and in the six years before he returned to Australia in 1961, he created the Owens Valley Radio Observatory which was quickly recognised as a world centre and which provided a much needed boost to radio astronomy in the US. Bolton's crew in this exercise came from all over the world ‘ England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and Norway. The graduate students were American and included Barry Clark, Ken Kellerman, Al Moffet and Bob Wilson.
Bolton announced abruptly in late 1960 that he was returning to Australia to supervise the steelwork which had commenced on the 210 foot telescope that Bowen had been planning for years. He also surveyed and reset every one of the more than one thousand panels arranged over an acre of surface. The Parkes radiotelescope was commissioned in late 1961 and Bolton took charge as Director of the Australian National Radio Astronomy Observatory (ANRAO) to begin a third and equally spectacular phase of his career. Parkes attracted astronomers from all over the world.
The Parkes telescope played an important part in several of NASA's Apollo missions, receiving and forwarding most of Apollo 11's historic broadcast of man walking on the Moon. A sudden emergency during another Apollo mission required Parkes to come on line in a matter of hours. In a situation of such urgency, kicking someone off the dish required no effort, but to quote the London Times Bolton, typically, left nothing to chance. With the Australian sun beating down, he stood, stop watch in hand, rehearsing teams of his perspiring staff in hand-cranking the axis gearing of the 1000-ton dish at rates correct to follow the spacecraft should mains power fail
More than anyone else, Bolton brought radio and optical astronomy together, through constant interaction with the best optical astronomers of his time, through the use of optical telescopes himself for identification purposes, and through efforts to set up major facilities like the Anglo Australian Telescope and the UK Schmidt Telescope. He was among the earliest to recognise the unity of astronomy across all wavelengths. Several changes took place at the Radio Physics Division in the period 1971-72. Bowen retired as the Chief of the Division and his place was taken by Paul Wild.
John Bolton retired as Director of ANRAO but continued in Parkes as Astronomer-at-large until 1981 when after a heart attack he decided to retire and move to a coastal resort in the warmer climate of Queensland.
Biography John Brooks was born in Sydney on 22 July 1940. He received his primary school education at Beverly Hills, […]
Job Titles:
- John Busby Retired As the Inaugural General Manager of the Australian Government 's Office of Spatial Data Management, a Whole - of - Government Initiative [ ]
John Busby retired as the inaugural General Manager of the Australian Government's Office of Spatial Data Management, a whole-of-government initiative
Biography John David Bunton became interested in electronics at an early age building radios and fixing TVs while in high […]
Biography John Farrow studied at the University of Western Australia (UWA), Perth, completing a Bachelor of Science with First Class […]
On 1st March, 1954, just before his 17th birthday, Dr Pitt joined CSIRO as a Technical Assistant Grade 1 (Junior). Over the years, he slowly moved up through all research grades, reaching Chief Research Scientist in 1992, at the age of 55. He appears to be the only CSIRO employee to have ever achieved the feat of moving up from TA to CRS. In early years he worked on the preservation of dried fruit, which led into his life long interest in mycological aspects of food spoilage.
John Lascelles Farrant was born on 7 October 1918 at Perth Western Australia to Arthur and Gertrude Farrant. He was […]
Biography John Lowenthal obtained his PhD in Immunology from the University of Melbourne in 1984. After postdoctoral positions at the […]
Biography After graduating from Sydney University's Electrical Engineering Department, Dr John O'Sullivan undertook a PhD as a student of Chris […]
John Possingham was born at Barmera, South Australia on 28 October 1929 to Albert Victor and Hilda Dora Possingham. He […]
Biography Dr John William Archer received B.Sc. in mathematics and physics, B.E (Hons 1) and PhD degrees in electrical engineering […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Jonathan Banks from CSIRO Entomology, received in 1993 the Sir Ian McLennan Award for his […]
Early life After completing her PhD in 1950 and working with the the Medical Research Council, Dr Olley spent 18 years […]
Biography Keith Murray was born in Scotland on 18 May 1946. He obtained his BVMS (Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine & […]
Biography Lee Berger was born on 16 January 1970 in Epsom, England. The family moved to Melbourne in 1971. She […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Les Edye from CSIRO Tropical Crops and Pastures, received in 1992 the Sir Ian McLennan
Biography Lloyd Thomas Evans was a highly distinguished plant scientist whose research has focused on the physiology of flowering. He […]
Job Titles:
- Physical Scientist
- Prize Medallion ( Australian Government )
- Role of Chief Executive
Malcolm McIntosh took up the role of Chief Executive of CSIRO in 1996 and presided over a major organisational restructure, the reshaping of the agency's science effort for the 21st century and the building of closer ties between science and industry.
Dr McIntosh joined CSIRO in February 1996, and piloted the national science agency through a series of organisational and budgetary shoals, overseeing the introduction of a new structure that brought the agency into closer partnership with its customers in industry.
As Chief Executive, he emphasised the need for both Australia and CSIRO to maintain their commitment to strategic, knowledge-gathering science as a vital first-step in delivering useful applied research to industry. Industry, in turn, has become more receptive.
Malcolm McIntosh's work is now commemorated in the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year.
Mark Berman was born in Sydney, New South Wales on 16 December, 1951, the only child of Holocaust survivors from […]
Biography Maston Beard graduated in 1939 from Sydney University and was involved in radio transmitter design and radar research until […]
Biography Mathew John Ballard was born 6th September 1957 in Sydney. His secondary school education was at Drummoyne Boys High […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Michael Barber was Executive Director of Science Planning at CSIRO. In 1992, he was elected […]
Early life Michael grew up on a dairy farm at Camden NSW and attended Camden state school. Tertiary education and […]
Biography Michael Freer graduated from Melbourne University School of Agriculture in 1952 and worked at the Animal Husbandry Research Centre, […]
Early life Mike Jermyn was a New Zealander. He first came to Australia in 1941 to work as a munitions […]
Biography Mike Johnson obtained his BSc with First-Class Honours and majors in Biochemistry, Genetics and Physiology from Macquarie University in […]
Mike Rickard was a veterinary parasitologist whose main research interests concerned the immunology, biology, epidemiology and control of tapeworm infections in livestock, and the transmission of tapeworms to humans. His research group developed and commercialised the first recombinant antiparasitic vaccine, leading to similar vaccines for range of cestode parasites. Between 1989 and 2001 Rickard was Chief of the CSIRO Division of Animal Health. Rickard was President of the Australian Society for Parasitology in 1982.
Early life Mildred Barnard was born in Melbourne but when she was four the family moved to the newly established […]
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Murray Andrews from CSIRO Wool Technology, was a key contributor along with John James and […]
Biography Nancy Burbidge was a systematic botanist and Curator of the Herbarium, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry. She published Flora […]
Niall Finn was born in Basildon, England, in 1959, the third of five sons to Joe, a historian, and Eileen […]
Job Titles:
- Member of the Council
- Video
Norman Keith Boardman was born in Geelong, Victoria in 1926. He attended Geelong High School for five years then did a Leaving honours year at Melbourne Boys High School. He was awarded a Dafydd Lewis Scholarship to study chemistry at the University of Melbourne, receiving a Master of Science in 1949 for his thesis on the properties and thermodynamics of molten salt mixtures.
He worked at the Wool Research Section of CSIR for two years where he attempted to shrinkproof wool, then went to Cambridge in 1951 to do his PhD on the separation of proteins by ion-exchange chromatography. He received an ICI postdoctoral fellowship to continue his work at Cambridge on the separation of proteins. He received a PhD and a ScD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.
In 1956, Boardman returned to Australia to the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry in Canberra to set up their chromatography facilities. Here he investigated protochlorophyll and its conversion to chlorophyll. His work with Dr Jan Anderson characterised the chlorophyll complexes sufficiently to show that the two photochemical systems of photosynthesis were physically separated. Boardman was also interested in the structure and development of chloroplasts in green plants. In 1964, as a Fullbright scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles, he prepared chloroplasts and achieved cell-free synthesis of chloroplast proteins.
Dr Boardman's research interests included the adaptation of plants to their light environment. During the mid-1960s to mid-1970, he was involved in characterising the photochemical systems and looking how the photosystems and photochemical activity developed during greening. He also carried out studies on the comparative photosynthesis of sun and shade plants.
Dr Boardman was a member of the Executive of CSIRO between 1977 and 1985. He became Chairman and Chief Executive in 1985 and Chief Executive in 1987 after the separation of the two positions.
Biography Dr Thilak Gunatillake was one of the key scientists involved in the design and synthesis of polyurethane biomaterials Elast-Eon® […]
Stub entry only. Contributions wanted Paul Fraser from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, was the key contributor to the Cape […]
Biography Paul P Roberts was born in Sydney in 1969. He received a BSc (Hons) in Applied Mathematics in 1991, […]
Biography Peter Ewan Reid was born at Lowood in Queensland in 1952 and grew up on a nearby property situated […]
Peter Hempenstall, in The Meddlesome Priest, records that Victor was named after the horse that had been his father's companion during his last years in the bush and whom his father later recognised as a formative influence in his life. In 1919, the family moved from Newcastle to Armidale and then at the end of 1925, the family drove in their Essex Six to Morpeth, on the edge of the Hunter valley, near Newcastle. As Peter Hempenstall relates:
The family uniformly remember (the move to Morpeth) as a Golden Age. Photographs show the children in bare feet and old clothes, with the vast estate theirs for the taking. Victor recalled a heedless childhood, undisciplined and largely unsupervised. The girls described a more protective environment but spacious and stimulating. They felt privileged in their easy access to their father, for he was always there, unlike ‘ordinary' Dads.
Lessons about religion and personal relationships were absorbed through conversation and example Victor could remember no special prominence given to one or other of the commandments, no particular taboos, ‘but the teaching I do remember' he said about his father ‘is that if you don't agree with me come and let's have a talk about it. Any decisions could be questioned'.
Early life Peter was born on 6 July 1948 in Newcastle NSW, the second of 3 sons to Wilfred (Deputy
Stub entry - contributions wanted. Ralph Kelley was a significant contributor along with Jim Rendel and Henry Turner to the
Biography Dr Ravi Anand was born in Paraur, India on 27 December 1951 and completed his primary and secondary education […]
Biography Ray Binns is an internationally-recognised geologist with special interests in the formation of Australian mineral deposits and their associated […]
Biography Ray Smith completed his Bachelor of Science (Hons 1) in geology and geophysics in 1963 and his PhD in […]
Biography Robert Anderssen was born on the Black Friday ‘ Friday the 13th ‘ in 1939 in Brisbane, Queensland and […]
Biography Robert Evans was born on July 8th, 1949 at Paddington Hospital in Sydney, and lived in Coledale (a small […]
Biography Robert Gordon Winks was born on 23rd January 1937 at Kingaroy, Queensland. His primary schooling was at Kingaroy State […]
Biography Robert Hallowes (Bob) Brown was born in Melbourne in 1930 and grew up in Oakleigh, where his father was […]
Biography Robert Henry Frater was born on 13 August 1937 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He obtained the following […]
Biography Robert Hocquard Leicester was born in 1935 in Singapore of Eurasian parents, Phyllis (nee Hocquard, School teacher) and Norbert […]
Robert John (Robin) Tillyard was born on 31 January 1881 at Norwich, Norfolk, England, the son of John Joseph Tillyard, […]
Bob Oreb from CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, was a key contributor along with Mark Berman and Michael Buckley to […]
Job Titles:
- Biography Robert Roger Ingpen AM, FRSA ( Born 13 October 1936 ) Is an Australian Graphic Designer, Illustrator, and Writer. for His [ ]
Biography Robert Roger Ingpen AM, FRSA (born 13 October 1936) is an Australian graphic designer, illustrator, and writer. For his
At CSIRO, we solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology.
Job Titles:
- Superintendent of the Radio Research Station
Early career Robin Bedding was born in 1940 in Chelmsford, UK where his father was working on radar for Marconi. […]
Biography Robin ET Hill was born on 10th August 1941 in Ipswich, Queensland. His primary schooling was at West Ipswich […]
At CSIRO He joined the CSIRO Division of Mineral Engineering as a Research Scientist in 1970, rising to the position […]
Biography Dr Ron Sharpe was one of the key scientists involved in developing BCAider expert system. Dr Sharpe graduated with […]
Biography Ronald David Ekers was born at Victor Harbour, South Australia on 18 September 1941. He obtained his BSc in […]
Biography Ronald Giovanelli was born in Grafton, New South Wales, on 30 April 1915, the only child of Irwin Wilfred […]
Early years Ronald (Ron) Lindsay Sandland was born in Marrickville (Sydney) on 13 April 1947 and completed his secondary education […]
Early life Dr Roy Montague Green was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire on 25 October 1935 and attended Ilkeston Grammar School. […]
Biography Dr. Russell Wylie gained his bachelors degree in physics from the University of Sydney, his masters degree from the […]
Biography San Hoa Thang was born in Saigon, Vietnam on 28 August 1954. He completed his BSc in Chemistry (University […]
Biography Shirley Winifred Jeffrey was born on 4 April 1930 in Townsville, Queensland. She received a BSc from the University […]
Sir David Rivett was the Chief Executive officer of CSIR between 1927 and 1945 and subsequently Chairman from 1945 to
Early life Sir Charles James Martin (1866-1955), physiologist and pathologist, was born on 9 January 1866 at Hackney, London, son […]
Biography James Robert Price was born on 25 March 1912 at Kadina, a small town at the top of the […]
Sir John Madsen helped pioneer Australian radio and radar research and played a major role in the development of national engineering standards.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Council
- Electronics Company and Its Chairman
Early life Stewart Henry Bastow was born in Folkestone, England on 22 February 1908. His family migrated to Australia. Stewart […]
Surinder Singh was born in Pune, India on 25 October 1955. He obtained his BSc in Biological Sciences, from Guru […]
Ta-Yan Leong joined the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry in 1982. He joined Head Office in 1994 and was instrumental in driving CSIRO's Asian engagement
Dr Taisa Demediuk began her chemistry career amidst the upheavals of wartime Western Europe. In 1950s Australia, she applied her great intellect and character to almost a decade of research at the CSIRO.
Biography Dr Terence Percival spent the first ten years of his career researching more sensitive radio receivers for large radio […]
Terrence Austin Cutler made contributions to Australian public policy across extraordinarily wide areas - the arts, telecommunications, science and innovation and design. He was particularly interested in the connections between all these areas of thought.
Thorburn Brailsford Robertson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 4 March 1884, the only child of Thorburn Robertson, insurance clerk […]
Biography Trevor Stanley Bird was born in Donald, Victoria on 27 August, 1949. Growing up in Donald a small country […]
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Member of the Council
- Member of the Executive Committee
Victor Dudley Burgmann was born on 5 December 1916 in North Sydney. His parents were Edna Carey Burgmann (nee Crowhurst) who was born in Rockley, NSW on 1 September 1895 and Ernest Henry Burgmann, born in Lansdowne, NSW on 9 May 1885. Early influences on his life included his father Ernest Burgmann, who was a very progressive churchman, and the social democratic values of post-war reconstruction. Ernest Burgmann was the Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn from 1934-60. In the cover notes of the book by Peter Hempenstall, called The Meddlesome Priest, published in 1993 by Allen & Unwin he is described as follows:
The Meddlesome Priest is the story of a 20th century Australian nationalist who became a legend. Ernest Burgmann experienced the Great Depression and the wounds it left on Australian society as a young Anglican priest in the Hunter Valley (NSW). During the 1930s and 1940s, he became known as an outspoken radical, a maverick within a conservative church and society. He and many others were surprised when he was elected Bishop of Goulburn in 1934, a country diocese which included the still small city of Canberra.
He was nicknamed the ‘Red Bishop' because he refused to share the anti-soviet paranoia which gripped most Australians. He was credited with helping to defeat the Menzies' referendum to outlaw the communist party and later joined with others in calling for Australia to keep out of Indo-China politics. He worked in Paris with HV Evatt on the United Nations' Universal declaration of Human Rights. He was a frequent campaigner in the newspapers, on public platforms and the radio, urging governments to do more for the unemployed, to service country people with water and electricity, and to rid the cities of slums.
Victor Burgmann was Officer-in-Charge of the Physics and Engineering Unit, Wool Textile Research Laboratory from 1949 to 1958 and when it was elevated to Divisional status, Foundation Chief of the Division of Textile Physics from 1958 to 1969. Details of the structure and physics research carried out at Ryde can be found in Vince Williams' book From Fleece to Fabric ‘ Fifty Years of Wool Textile Research, 1948-1998.
In March 1969, Victor Burgmann became an Associate Member of the Executive Committee of CSIRO and was made a full-time member the following year. When Sir Robert (Jerry) Price retired in 1977 after seven years as Chairman of CSIRO, Victor was appointed to succeed him. This was at the time of the Birch Independent Inquiry into CSIRO. Victor remained Chairman until retiring in September 1978 when Paul Wild took over to implement the changes recommended by the Inquiry.
He was created a Companion of the Order of the British Empire in January 1977 and was a member of the Farmers Club (London). He became a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia in 1977 and was its Deputy Chairman from 1982 to 1984.
Biography Walter Moritz Boas was born in Berlin on 10 February 1904. He graduated with the Diploma of Engineering (Applied […]
Job Titles:
- Business Director
- Deputy Chief
Wayne Stewart Meyer was Deputy Chief and Business Director for CSIRO Land and Water from 2002 to 2004. For his […]
Job Titles:
- Dr Bill Barendse Is a CSIRO Senior Principal Research Scientist Working to Identify Genetic Markers That Can Be Used
Biography Dr Bill Barendse is a CSIRO Senior Principal Research Scientist working to identify genetic markers that can be used […]
Biography Bill Young completed a Bachelor of Engineering with First-Class Honours, Agricultural, from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and […]
Early life Bill Whitton was born in Sandringham, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, on 4 October 1924 and died in […]
Stub entry only. Contributions wanted Bill Trahar from CSIRO Mineral and Process Engineering, was awarded in 1992-93 a CSIRO Fellow […]
Early life William John Young (1878-1942), biochemist, was born on 26 January 1878 at Withington, Manchester, Lancashire, England, son of […]
Biography William Roderick Blevin was born on 31 October 1929, at Inverell, New South Wales. His mother Elizabeth McRae was […]