Prame Chopra - geophysician and earth scientist

Abstract

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”.