Biography

Dr Robin Batterham, a chemical engineer, was born in Brighton, Australia to a family with a talent for music and engineering. He faced an early choice between science and the arts before graduating from the University of Melbourne in Chemical Engineering and completing a PhD in 1969. After post-doctoral studies with ICI Central Research Laboratories in England, Batterham returned to Australia as a research scientist with the Division of Chemical Engineering at CSIRO. He was appointed Chief of the Division of Mineral Process Engineering in 1985 and, from 1988 held senior positions in Technology Development with what is now Rio Tinto Limited.

Dr Batterhams career has been primarily in direct collaboration with industry. The focus of this work was and continues to be on the scale-up of new processes and the improvement of existing processes. Early in his career, he developed a successful principle for scale-up that has been applied in many examples and continues to be used to good effect 50 years later.

Batterham is a past President of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (2007 – 2012), former Chief Scientist of Australia (1999 – 2005) and past President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. He joined the University of Melbourne School of Engineering as Kernot Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2010.

Dr Batterham is still a musician. He is patron and former chair of the Australian Chamber Choir, Organist Emeritus at Scot’s Church in Melbourne and has performed in many Cathedrals, Concert Halls and Universities.