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Volume 1 No 1: February 1997 |
Personality profiles |
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Leading from the frontAS one of Australia's leading research hydrometallurgists, Murdoch's Ian Ritchie is dedicated to forging the world's biggest and best centre for hydrometallurgy.
 And Professor Ritchie has good reason to believe the A.J. Parker Co-operative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy at Murdoch University has achieved that goal in just five years.With more than 60 staff employed in research, the Parker Centre is now the largest organisation of its kind in the world. And its scientists have been instrumental in improving the competitiveness of Australia's minerals industry in the international marketplace.Medal His work in electrochemistry has earned Professor Ritchie the prestigious Royal Australian Chemical Institute's Stokes Medal, awarded every four years to an eminent Australian electrochemist.As further testimony to his international standing, Professor Ritchie was one of only three invited international speakers at a recent Tokyo symposium sponsored by Japan's Metal Mining Agency, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation.Professor Ritchie makes it clear that only by relying on its wits and producing world-class research results, has the Parker Centre earned the respect and financial backing of the minerals industry. That standing was prominently recognised when the Murdoch-based Centre won the R&D Award in the 1996 Western Australian Industry and Export Awards.The Centre, named after Murdoch University's foundation professor of chemistry Jim Parker, aims to deliver 'the best science and technology to the world's hydrometallurgical industries', and an industry investment of Western Australia's Professor Ritchie says the Parker Centre relies on applying 'its wits' to both immediate problems, where industry needs an answer within weeks or months, to the most fundamental investigation, where five to ten years might pass before a practical outcome can be realised: "If the research we do is not groundbreaking, we are not fulfilling our mission."Minerals industry leaders stress the Centre's commitment to service and close collaboration with industry partners. This ensures that the science is relevant, and that the outcomes flow quickly to where they will be of most benefit--the operating mine-sites. High profile physicsA BETTER understanding of lasers and fluorescent lighting has been made possible by research conducted by Murdoch University physicist Andris Stelbovics.
Associate Professor Stelbovics' work in electron atom scattering theory earned him Australia's top honour in physics research -- the Boas Medal."The research has been made possible in the last 10 years by the advances and application of sophisticated computing techniques in conducting calculations," Professor Stelbovics says. "It would have been impossible to solve the theoretical issues in the days of pencil and paper calculations."Recognition Professor Stelbovics, the third Western Australia in seven years to win the Boas Medal, shared the award with Dr Igor Bray, of Flinders University in South Australia."Although Western Australians make up only 10 per cent of physicists in Australia, their recognition through this Australian Institute of Physics' award is testimony to the excellence of physics research in this state," Professor Stelbovics says.The Institute's citation for the award said Professor Stelbovics and Dr Bray had 'dramatically raised the international profile of Australian science in a field that is fiercely competitive, in international terms.'The Boas Medal was established by the Australian Institute of Physics in 1984 to promote excellence in physics research.
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