David Craig - Emeritus Professor, physical and theoretical chemist

Abstract

This interview, with Professor David Craig, is part of the E- F-'s Oral History Program, involving retired members of staff 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 origins and development 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.

David Craig is emeritus professor of chemistry in ANU and a member of Emeritus Faculty. He was born in Sydney in 1919, educated at Shore School and the University of Sydney, and served in the AIF in the Second World War. After the war, he completed a PhD at University College London, then in1952 returned to Sydney University to become Professor of Physical Chemistry.

David was appointed Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at University College London in 1956, from where he was enticed back to Australia in 1967 to become (with Arthur Birch) one of the founding professors in the Research School of Chemistry at ANU. He served two terms as Dean of that School, and was also a member of the Executive of CSIRO in that time. In 1968 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1990 President of the Australian Academy of Science. Show more