ANU Emeritus Faculty

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The History of ANU Computing: a Cast of Characters; an Array of Machines; a Record of Achievement
(2021) Hawking, David
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Life Celebrations: ANU Obituaries 2000 - 2021
(2021)
A volume of obituaries of 192 ANU members 2000 - 2021. Compiled and edited by James J. Fox on behalf of the ANU Emeritus Faculty, for the 75th anniversary of the ANU.
Open Access
Malcolm Whyte - clinical scientist and community health activist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Whyte, Malcolm; Stewart, Peter
Henry Malcolm Whyte was born in India in 1920, of Australian Protestant missionaries. He went to school in Sydney and Ipswich, Queensland, then studied medicine and science at the University of Queensland. He graduated top of his year in 1944, with a university medal for outstanding academic performance and a Rhodes Scholarship. After war service with the Army in Borneo and the Celebes, he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Queensland, then in 1947 took his Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, where he gained a DPhil, won membership of the Royal College of Physicians, and added a second child to his family. He returned to Australia in 1952 as Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Kanematsu Institute at Sydney Hospital, and undertook comparative studies of heart disease in Australia, where the disease was rife, and the Highlands of Papua and Guinea, where it was not. In 1966, he was appointed Foundation Chair of Clinical Science in the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU, combining hospital medicine and basic research. Soon after, he helped in the planning for an undergraduate medical school at ANU, but a decade later that project was pigeon-holed. In 1977, he switched to social and behavioural aspects of medicine and was appointed coordinator of the community-based Alcohol and Drug Dependence Unit within the ACT Health Commission, working closely with such field agencies as the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul Society, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alanon. From there he became Consultant in Community Health in the Northern Territory Department of Health in 1984, mentoring and training community health workers. Returning to Canberra from the Northern Territory a year later, the 65-year old Malcolm became active in the Red Cross Blood Bank, the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, the Canberra Marriage Counselling Service, Lifeline Canberra, and the Ethics Committee of the Australian Institute of Health. He coordinated a review of Health Services in South Australia, and was appointed Commissioner of Complaints for the NHMRC. Malcolm was elected an Emeritus Professor of the ANU in 1980, awarded an Honorary MD in the University of Queensland in 1986, and appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in 1991. He has published widely on his medical, scientific, and community interests. He is now 91 years old and retains a keen and active interest in a number of fields of science and medicine.
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Mike Rickard - field and tectonic geologist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Rickard, Mike; Stewart, Peter
Mike Rickard was born and educated in London, and after field studies and practice in Canada and Fiji, joined the Geology Department in the School of General Studies at ANU in 1963. He became Reader in Geology and held appointments as Sub Dean and Deputy Dean of Science Head of Department of Geology, and the exalted ceremonial position of Marshall of the University. Mike was at different times Secretary and President of the Geological Society of Australia, and was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, which oversees professional standards in geology. In 1996, he was awarded the AB Edwards Medal by the Geological Society for best paper in economic geology. After retirement in 1995, Mike became a visiting fellow at ANU, active in continuing education through the University of the Third Age. He is now a committee member of ANU Emeritus Faculty. Mike has recently written a history of geology in ANU, and is a contributor to Geology of the ACT.
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Ian Mathews - newspaper editor and community activist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Mathews, Ian; Stewart, Peter
Ian Mathews is not strictly a past member of ANU staff, though he is happily embraced within the collegial fellowship ofANU’s Emeritus Faculty; he is the editor of the Faculty’s regular newsletter, Emeritus. Ian was previously Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Canberra Times, serving with the newspaper from 1963 to 1988. He had previously worked with the Adelaide News, and with several provincial newspapers in the UK. For his contributions to journalism he was awarded an Order of Australia in 1988. Since leaving the Canberra Times in 1988, Ian has edited Stand To, for the Returned Services League of Australia, UNity, the journal of the United Nations’ Association of Australia, and The Order, for the Order of Australia Association. He has also served on national and local organisations supporting education, health, literature, foreign affairs, peace and disarmament, and the arts. Ian co-authored with Russell Fox (previously Chief Justice of the ACT Supreme Court) the book Drug Policy – Fact, Fiction and the Future, a proposal for alternative approaches to national and community drugs policy. Apart from his editorial and community activities, Ian is currently studying English literature at ANU.
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John Passmore - Emeritus Professor, philosopher
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Passmore, John; Foster, Stephen; Stewart, Peter; Fominas, Nik; Nelson, Diana
Professor Passmore was born in Manly, NSW, on 9 September 1914. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1934 with first class honours in Philosophy and English Literature. In 1941 he took his MA in Philosophy with first class honours and the university medal. Between 1935 and 1949 he held a number of academic posts in the Philosophy department at Sydney University and then became Professor of Philosophy in the University of Otago, New Zealand in 1950. In 1955 he resigned from this professorship to become Reader and then Professor of Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences. After his retirement in 1980 he was appointed University Fellow in the History of Ideas Unit and was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor.
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Pat White - university administrator
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) White, Pat; Foster, Stephen; Stewart, Peter; Fominas, Nik; Nelson, Diana
Miss Pat White commenced her administrative career with the university in 1962 when she was appointed as a Graduate Assistant on the staff of the Registrar of the School of General Studies. In 1965 she was appointed as Sub-Dean of the Faculty of Arts, a position that had previously been occupied by a member of the academic staff. As Sub-Dean she was primarily concerned with student administration. Her move to central administration came in 1973 when she was appointed Acting Assistant Registrar, Academic staff matters. This was followed shortly after by a promotion to Assistant Registrar, Student Administration. In 1983 she transferred to the position of Assistant Registrar, Council and remained in this position until her retirement in May 1991. In addition to her service to university administration, she served on the boards of a number of residential colleges and is currently a member of the Ursula College board.
Open Access
Prame Chopra - geophysician and earth scientist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Chopra, Prame; Bygrave, Fyfe; Bygrave, Fyfe
This interview with Prame Chopra, previously a member of the Geology Department in the Faculties, is part of the ANU Emeritus Faculty's Oral History Program, involving retired staff members who were part of the university in its earlier life. The Oral History Program was initiated and developed by ANU Emeritus Faculty as a contribution to university and community understanding of the beginnings and development of ANU over the past six decades. Emeritus Faculty has a special interest in this period, since the Faculty's membership includes many of the people who helped shape the university in its early days, to make it the pre-eminent institution it is today. This interview with Fyfe Bryant was recorded in January 2016. Prame Chopra was born in Melbourne in 1953 and was educated at schools in Melbourne, Adelaide and Newcastle. Immediately prior to Prame’s introduction to ANU he was an Honours student at the University of Newcastle. He came to Canberra in the winter of 1975 as one of a group of fourth year geology students invited from other Australian universities to the Research School of Earth Sciences. This was the first attempt by the School to foster better links with prospective PhD candidates from Australia. Consequently Prame enrolled in the PhD program at RSES from 1976 to 1980. He worked in the high pressure/ high temperature laboratory of Professor Mervyn Paterson on the rheology of olivine rocks to better determine the flow properties of these rocks. This enabled modelling of the processes that drive Plate Tectonics/ Continental Drift. Prame said “I have very fond memories of my time at ANU as a postgraduate student”.
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Margaret Evans - psychotherapist and university counsellor
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Evans, Margaret; Stewart, Peter
Margaret Evans was educated in New Zealand and trained as a psychotherapist in London. She and husband Lloyd, a plant physiologist, moved from the US to Canberra in 1956; Margaret joined ANU to establish its counselling service in 1964. She became a central figure in the development of the university’s student educational services more generally, and an elected representative of ANU Council in 1982-86. Margaret retired in 1996, but continued to provide her services as a consultant to the ANU counselling group. Margaret and Lloyd continue to live in the family home in Campbell which they have occupied for 50 years. Their two sons are members of ANU faculty, and their daughter is an artist working in the Hunter Valley
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Angela Giblin - musician and teacher
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Giblin, Angela; Stewart, Peter
Angela Ann Giblin was born in Sydney in 1948, to parents Barbara and Hugh (solicitor). Her brother David, born 18 months later, would go on to become a businessman. Angela began her schooling at Loquat Valley School, Bayview, near Pittwater, Sydney, then moved to Ascham School. Kenneth Robins was her music master at Ascham, and his choir, and score-reading classes, were inspirational for Angela. At age 14, Angela’s family moved to Bowral, where nearby at Mittagong Angela studied at Frensham School. There she studied piano with Ian Cooper, and clarinet with Ann Thompson; she also studied with Norma (Bobbie) Williams, teacher and accompanist. Angela was introduced by them to what would later become her instrument – her singing voice. She remained in touch with these mentors and teachers over many years. In 1971 Angela completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree at Sydney University, and in 1972 she was introduced to performance, as Messagera in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, in a production by the Sydney University Musical Society, conducted by Peter Seymour. Receiving warm praise from Roger Covell, the doyen of Sydney music critics, a career in music became a firm possibility. In 1973 Angela enrolled for a Diploma of Opera at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, and in 1974 auditioned for and was invited to join the Opera Studio of the Australian Opera, as the company's first Trainee Principal. Putting her diploma studies on hold, Angela was soon promoted to Principal, singing a number of solo roles with the company, and working with conductors and directors such as Richard Bonynge, Edward Downes, John Cox, and John Copley. She also performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Willem van Otterloo.
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Penny Sackett : former Director of Mount Stromlo Observatory
(The Australian National University) Sackett, Penny; Winternitz Judith
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Adrian Gibbs - Professor, virologist and evolutionary biologist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Gibbs, Adrian; Stewart, Peter
This interview, with Professor Adrian Gibbs, is part of the Emeritus Faculty's Oral History Program, involving retired staff members of ANU who were part of the university in the early decades of its life. The program was initiated and developed by ANU Emeritus Faculty as a contribution to university and community understanding of the beginnings and evolution of ANU over the past sixty years. Emeritus Faculty has a special interest in this era, since the Faculty's membership includes many of the people who helped shape ANU in its early days, to make it the pre-eminent university it is today. Born in London in 1934, Adrian Gibbs is a graduate of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London and also has a PhD from that university. Adrian first came to ANU in 1966, on a three-year research fellowship in the John Curtin School of Medical Research. After returning to England for 18 months, he was appointed as Senior Fellow then Professor in the Research School of Biological Sciences at ANU. From 1997-2005 he was a Visiting Fellow in RSBS and JCSMR, and in the Division of Botany and Zoology in The Faculties. He now continues his research and writing from home and the Emeritus Faculty. Adrian was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1993. He has been a member of editorial boards of international journals, committees overseeing databases for virus identification and taxonomy, and advisory boards for plant quarantine and protection. Adrian has published extensively in virus systematics and evolution, extending through nine books and over 200 shorter publications, some online. The application of fundamental knowledge to understanding the origins and evolution of viruses and the diseases they cause, particularly those of plants, has been the basis of his work, but his most long lasting contribution will be that, for that work, he started the development of virus databases, notably Descriptions of Plant Viruses and the VIDEdB (Virus Identification Data Exchange database), which became the ICTVdB (the database of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses).
Open Access
Heinz Wolfgang Arndt - Emeritus Professor, economist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Arndt, Heinz Wolfgang; Connell, Daniel; Stewart, Peter; Fominas, Nik
Professor Heinz Arndt was born in Germany in 1915 and was educated in German schools, Oxford University and the London School of Economics. He was appointed as a research assistant at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London in 1941 and then took up his first academic appointment at Manchester University in 1943. In 1946 Professor Arndt was offered the position of senior lecturer in economics at Sydney University. He then became the foundation professor in economics at the Canberra University College in 1951. By 1963 Professor Arndt's interest in development economics led him to accept a chair in the Department of Economics, Research School of Pacific Studies. He was Professor and Head of the Department of Economics until his retirement in 1980. After retirement he was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor and offered a Visiting Fellowship in the Development Studies Centre (later called the National Centre for Development Studies). Professor Arndt also worked as a consultant to various United Nations organisations.
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Helen Cumpston - university administrator
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Cumpston, Helen; Connell, Daniel; Stewart, Peter; Fominas, Nik
Mrs Helen Cumpston was born in 1910 in Hobart and was educated in state schools and the University of Tasmania. She graduated with a law degree in 1930. She joined the Commonwealth Public Service in 1937 as a librarian with the Department of Commerce. Between 1946 and 1957 Mrs Cumpston accompanied her husband on postings to Chile, New Zealand and New Caledonia. In 1957 she returned to Canberra to take up her appointment at the Australian National University as a graduate assistant in the registrar's division. Her first contact with Canberra universities was in 1938 when she held a temporary lectureship in modern history at the Canberra University College. Mrs Cumpston worked in university administration for seventeen years. Her initial duties involved the provision of administrative support services for postgraduate students. She also dealt with legislative problems such as the Superannuation Statute. In 1963 she was appointed as Assistant Registrar. She retired from the university in 1975. After retirement Mrs Cumpston held the position of Assistant Secretary to the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee.
Open Access
The Context and Achievements of the Lapita Homeland Project 1985: A Brief History, by Jim Allen
Allen, Jim
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Derek Wrigley - architect and solar energy activist
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Wrigley, Derek; Stewart, Peter
Derek Wrigley was born in 1924 in Oldham near Manchester, UK in 1924. He excelled in architecture and design at the Manchester School of Art and Science then enrolled for postgraduate study in structural engineering and town planning at Manchester School of Science and Technology, and Manchester University. With little opportunity for architects in post-war England, Derek bought a boat ticket to Australia in 1947 to explore the greater options he had heard about from contacts there. After practicing and building in Sydney, he returned briefly to England to visit his sick father and on the way back took a ‘study tour’ in the USA and Japan to explore the new architecture movements in those countries, including visits to Bauhaus exponents such as Walter Gropius in Harvard and Mies van der Rohe in Chicago. Back in Sydney in 1951 he was appointed to Sydney Technical College to teach design and construction. STC became the University of Technology and then the University of NSW in the time Derek spent teaching there. In 1957, Derek was invited by ANU Architect Fred Ward (founder of the Society for Designers in Industry) to join ANU’s Design Unit (the UDU). Derek succeeded Fred Ward as head of UDU on Ward’s retirement in 1961 and was appointed ANU Architect. As head of UDU Derek was responsible for all aspects of design within the campus – site planning, architecture, interior design, furniture, landscape, graphics and signage. In its time the Design Unit was unique in having responsibility for all aspects of university design. Disillusioned by the inclination of senior administrators to meddle in structure and design, Derek resigned from ANU in 1977 and returned to private practice. Since then he has built and retrofitted a number of private houses with an emphasis on design aimed at conserving energy, material and water use. He has written a number of books and pamphlets as technical guides in house building for owners and builders. Most recently he has designed and is supervising the building of an EcoSolar housein Chifley ACT which will provide a model for testing best practice in domestic housing. Derek is also writing a biography of his mentor, the late Fred Ward.
Open Access
Christopher Bryant, AM - Emeritus Professor, biochemical parasitologist and science communicator
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Bryant, Christopher; Stewart, Peter
Christopher Bryant was born in 1936 at Hampstead, North London. His father was a classically trained pianist who had, during the Great Depression, formed a small band, The Paragon Players, which performed at various venues in North London. His daytime job was demonstrating pianos for Maples and Co, Tottenham Court Road, London. As World War Two approached, however, he joined the London Fire Brigade and, by the end of the war, rose to be a Senior Fire Controller for North London. After the war, his father rejoined Maples as an Estimator and Interior Designer. He never played professionally again. Belatedly, but happily, Chris’s sister Jocelyn arrived in the family in 1953. Chris attended private schools at Buckingham College, Harrow, and Haberdashers’ Aske’s, Hampstead. In later life, he wondered how his parents, of modest means, could afford the fees. Later, his father’s memoirs made it clear. Maples, one of the old family companies set up in the early 19th century, had a policy of educating its employees’ children to encourage staff loyalty. If the child could win a place in a school, the company would pay the fees, together with a small allowance for uniforms. Despite Chris’s considerable talents as a scholar in secondary school, failure in Latin precluded him from seeking entry to Cambridge or Oxford. Happily, his later career appears not to have been disadvantaged by this. In 1955 Chris gained a County Award to Kings College London, where he graduated BSc with Honours in Zoology in 1958. In the same year, with a DSIR studentship, he enrolled for a PhD with Jim Danielli, the noted membrane biochemist. As a preliminary, Chris completed an MSc at University College London. He returned to King’s but was so disenchanted with his research topic and conditions that in 1960 he transferred to King’s College Hospital to work on the effects of anti-inflammatory drugs (such as aspirin) on subcellular metabolism in animal tissues, supervised by Mervyn Smith.
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Derek Wrigley : University Designer/Architect
(The Australian National University) Wrigley, Derek; Winternitz, Judith
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John Mulvaney - Emeritus Professor, historian and prehistorian
(The Australian National University, Emeritus Faculty Inc.) Mulvaney, John; Stewart, Peter
John Mulvaney joined ANU in 1965, and was Professor of Prehistory in the Faculty of Arts from 1971 to 1985, when he took early retirement and became, among other things, Honorary Secretary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Professor Mulvaney has written extensively on Australian history and prehistory including most recently his autobiography. He has been an executive officer of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, founder member of the Australian Heritage Commission, and activist in heritage and conservation causes. Interview abstract: Derek John Mulvaney was born in Yarram, Victoria in 1925. His Irish immigrant father was a primary school teacher whose transfers around Victoria were decided by the schooling needs of John and his four siblings. Following year 11 at Frankston High School, John became a trainee teacher, a career move which he soon realized was unlikely to work. However, by then the war against Japan had begun and John joined the RAAF as a navigator. His training took him to Canada, then England, but the end of the war in Europe prevented him from embarking on what would have been a risky extension to his career, in Lancaster bombers. Instead, John’s short encounter with life in England engaged his historian’s curiosity, provoking him to explore villages, churches, graveyards, and other historical sites on his days off. Returning to Australia late in 1945, John arrived in time to begin the next academic year, and thus to set out on one of the signal intellectual and life-shaping events for him – enrolment in Melbourne University as an honours student in history, funded by the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. Completing his degree, John was persuaded by Professor Max Crawford to enroll for postgraduate study at Melbourne. Then, graduating MA with first class honours, John had his first encounter with ANU, as an applicant for a graduate scholarship. John’s preference for prehistory had by then been decided from his studies at Melbourne, but his ANU application set out a unique request – that he be permitted to use the graduate scholarship to enroll in undergraduate study, in Paleolithic archaeology, at Cambridge University. Cambridge was then one of few university centers interested in archeology beyond the Old World. Enrolled in that two-year course, John took part in his first archeological digs – in England and Ireland, Denmark, and importantly, in Cyrenaica, Libya. His career was launched.
Open Access
Elizabeth Minchin, The Classics Department - A Brief History
Minchin, Elizabeth

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