Cyril Angus Appleby was born in 1928 in the seaside country town of Victor Harbor, South Australia. After completing his schooling at Victor Harbor High School, Appleby received a State Government scholarship in 1945 to study at Adelaide High School and sit for the Leaving Honours Certificate. In 1946 he was awarded a Commonwealth Government scholarship which led him to study Science at the University of Adelaide.
Andrew Reginald Howard (Andy) Cole was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1924. He qualified for a place at Perth's only selective school, Perth Modern School, in 1937. After finishing secondary school in 1941, Cole was awarded a government university exhibition to study at the University of Western Australia (1942-46). Cole graduated with a BSc (Hons) in chemistry.
John Oswald Newton was born in 1924 in Birmingham, England. He won a scholarship to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he completed the first two years of his bachelors degree (BA, 1944) before joining the war effort in 1943. During WWII Newton worked as a junior scientific officer at the radar facility in Malvern. In 1946, he was able to return to the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge to finish his MA (1948) and later his PhD (1953).
James Douglas (Jim) Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1924. Morrison completed his higher education at Glasgow University with a BSc (Hons) in chemistry (1945) and a PhD in X-ray crystallography (1948). Morrison was also awarded a DSc from Glasgow University in 1958.
President of the Australian Academy of Science 1978-82
Professor Athel Beckwith is an organic chemist whose work has covered a number of areas ranging from theoretical calculations to the synthesis of complex molecules. He is best known for his research into the structure and behaviour of organic free radicals. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Australian Academy of Science and is also a Fellow and Past President of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.
Professor Sam Carey received a DSc from the University of Sydney in 1939 for his work on the tectonic evolution of New Guinea and Melanesia. He worked in the petroleum industry in New Guinea and then served with the Australian Infantry Forces from 1942-44. After the war he became chief government geologist in Tasmania and later was appointed foundation professor of geology at the University of Tasmania.
Sabine Piller was born in 1970 in Vienna, Austria. In 1991 she completed a degree at the University of Vienna, majoring in zoology, botany, chemistry and physics. She moved to the USA for further studies and in 1993 received an MSc from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where she researched the gill physiology of marine crabs. From 1993-94 Piller worked in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Vienna.
Lesley Rogers was born in Brisbane in 1943. She received a BSc (Hons) from Adelaide University in 1964, where she investigated the physiology of long-necked tortoises. From 1965 to 1966 she was a teaching fellow at Harvard University and from 1967 to 1968 she was a research assistant in the Gastroenterology Department of the New England Medical Center Hospital in Boston.
Dr Alec Costin is an ecologist who has more than fifty years experience in the research and management of ecological environments with particular emphasis on high mountain and high latitude ecosystems. After obtaining his degree he accepted an honours placement to study the Australian Alps. This was an auspicious career choice, as in the mid 1940s very little was known about the ecology of the area.
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