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Professor of City Policy Peter Newman's love affair with environmental science and cities began in the early 1970s when he took a postgraduate diploma at Delft University in the Netherlands.
 Since then he has become a world authority on how cities can integrate environmental concerns into their urban fabric.
"Initially I didn't set out to study cities," said Professor Newman.
"But Delft was totally different to anything I had ever experienced. It is a 17th century Dutch city and absolutely intriguing in the way it works."
Professor Newman said although he bought a car the day he arrived, he hardly ever used it.
"I slowly got used to the fact that everything was within a short walk and public transport to other cities was more than adequate. At the time, Delft was also a world leader in traffic calming, although this was not a part of my course."
The following year, Professor Newman went to Stanford University in California to work with Professor Paul Ehrlich.
"My family and I decided not to buy a car but to use bicycles," he said.
"But we soon found it almost impossible to live there as this city was designed around the car."
Professor Newman said this was his first experience of 'automobile dependence'  a phrase he coined that was later adopted by environmentalists internationally.
"This was at the time of the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and with the onset of the energy crisis, nobody was relating to cities," he said.
"So I decided to study them in the context of energy use and the environment."
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Professor Newman joined Murdoch University in 1974 to help establish the new discipline of Environmental Science.
Assisted by Murdoch's Dr Jeff Kenworthy he started studying Australian cities.
When money for studying overseas cities wasn't forthcoming, Professor Newman and Dr Kenworthy decided to fund it themselves.
"Jeff took seven months off, visiting 32 cities internationally at his own expense. Some time later, in 1986, I took study leave to visit another 42 cities in six months."
After this they obtained funding from what is now the Energy Research Development Corporation (ERDC) and together produced the book Cities and Automobile Dependence.
"This book, published in 1989, contained the first comprehensive comparison of the world's major cities in terms of transport, energy and planning," said Professor Newman.
"It has continued to be a good seller and is used by all major urban researchers."
Professor Newman has also tried to practise what he preaches. He was an elected councillor in the City of Fremantle during the late '70s when the city chose to develop, based on its heritage and pedestrian qualities.
He was also closely involved with the saving, upgrading and extension of Perth's rail system.
In 1990 Professor Newman was made Director of the Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP) which had been set up through a Western Australian State government grant.
It is now the biggest research institute of its kind in Australia, doing research on the overlapping areas of sustainability, innovation and human values.
Ongoing international research projects include the Global Cities Study (supported by the World Bank), doing policy work for the CRC on Renewable Energy and an environmental ethics project involving an international fund to bring an ecofeminist scholar to ISTP every second year.
See also
Murdoch secures niche in Japan's solar energy R&D
Building confidence in renewable energy
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