Rupert Horace Myers 1921–2019

Ian D. Rae

doi:10.1071/HR23023

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Rupert Horace Myers 1921–2019

Ian D. Rae

^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Vic. 3010, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: iandrae@bigpond.com

Historical Records of Australian Science 35(1) 51-59 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23023

Published online: 11 January 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Sir Rupert Horace Myers (1921–2019) was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne Boys High School and the University of Melbourne, where he was awarded a PhD degree in 1948 for research on the production of rare metals from Australian ores. As part of an Australian delegation, he worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in the United Kingdom on production of uranium and plutonium metals. He returned to Australia in 1952 as foundation professor of metallurgy at the still very young University of New South Wales, where he later became vice-chancellor, serving from 1969 to 1981 before entering a long and fruitful retirement. Knighted in 1981, he was a model of scientific and academic leadership in Australia.

Keywords: atomic energy, chemistry, governance, metallurgy, metals, tantalum, technology, uranium.

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