Edition: 2025 February (Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - late summer - season of eels)

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology

• Find People [ Find people born 100 years ago ]
• Find Organisations and groups [ Find entities founded 100 years ago ]
• Find Archival and manuscript collections
• Find Publications (offline and online)
• Find Awards, prizes and medals
• Find Innovations, inventions and significant cultural objects
• Find major Events and expeditions
• Find major Journals
• See entries grouped by Tag, for example: occupation or function
• See latest news and announcements
• Search (using Google Custom Search) e.g. name of organisation, person, phrase or word

Featured in the edition:

Resources for the History of Australian Science and Innovation

• Browse Archival Resource Indexes A-Z [2025 February edition: total 3,046 entries.]
• Browse Bibliographic Indexes A-Z [2025 February edition: total 27,198 entries.]
• Latest Annual Bibliography [no. 44 2022/23], published in Historical Records of Australian Science, 2024 - download the pdf for free

Scientists, Organisations, Innovations and featured entries

• Browse Entity Indexes A-Z [2025 February edition: total 9,900 entries.]
• Bratt, Geoffrey (1931 - 1977)): was an metallurgist who for much of his professional career worked for the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia. He worked primarily on physical chemical studies of the purification and electro-deposition stages of zinc production. In his leisure time, he became an expert on Tasmanian lichens.
• Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (1985 - ): a statutory body under the Government of Victoria, established under the Coroners Act of 1985 and in succession to the Coronial services Centre (which comprised the coroner's court and the Victorian Institute of Forensic Pathology). In addition to its key functional roles it conducts research in the fields of forensic pathology, medicine and science; and undergraduate and postgraduate training in forensic pathology.
• Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (1961 - ): started in 1961 as the Thoracic Society of Australia, with New Zealand joining in 1988. Membership includes medical specialists, researchers, clinical practitioners and students. The Society promotes the highest quality and standards of patient care; development and application of knowledge about respiratory health and disease; standards for air quality, including a tobacco-smoke-free society and effective regulation of nicotine delivery systems; and the professional and collegiate needs of the membership.
• Bowes, Glenn (1948 - 2025): was an highly respected specialist in respiratory medicine. He was associated with several of Melbourne's principal hospitals, including the Austin Hospital where he was Director of Respiratory Services and developed Australia's first adult cystic fibrosis program.
• Davis, Dorothy Gwenda Louise (Gwenda) (1911 - 1993): was a plant taxonomist and embryologist who joined the New England University College in 1945. She was largely responsible for establishing the College's Department of Botany. Her research during her early years was on the taxonomy of endemic species of Australian Asteraceae, including the genera Calotis and Podolepis.
• Rowe, Lincoln Gordon (1922 - 1995): AM HonFIEAust BE, was the Director-General of the Department of Trade and Industry, South Australia and Director of State Development, and supervised the establishment of Adelaide's Technology Park, during the early 1980s. As well as his wide industrial experience, Rowe also serviced the engineering profession as chairman of the South Australian Division, Institution of Engineers Australia; as President; and as chairman of the board of Engineers Australia Pty. Ltd. during its formative years.
• Endersbee, Lance Aubrey (1925 - 2009): was an acknowledged champion of Australian engineers and engineering, and helped deploy Australian engineering expertise overseas. His fields of specialisation included the management of planning and design of major economic development projects, water resources, energy engineering and transport engineering.
• Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association (PACIA) (1994 - 2017): was the peak national body representing the plastics, chemicals, adhesives and sealants industries in Australia. Following the lead of its predecessors, it continued to organise "Know Your Plastics" seminars, and update the associated text book Know your plastics: Plastic materials for our future (reprinted 2009). The seminars were designed to be suitable for anyone working in plastics manufacture, engineering, sales and purchasing, and for newcomers to the industry.
• Dempster, Andrew Marsden Gresham (Marsden) (1899 - 1968): was Chief Civil Engineer, Commonwealth Department of Works and Housing from 1946, and was involved with the reconstruction of Darwin after the Second World War. Earlier, as an innovative bridge design engineer with the Country Roads Board of Victoria, between 1927 and 1942, he was associated with the pioneering use of electric arc welded bridge superstructures including the Sunday Creek Bridge (1930), the McKillops bridge over the Snowy River at Wulgulmerang (1931-1934); and other significant bridges including the Hoddle Bridge over the Yarra River (1938) and the Phillip Island suspension bridge (1940).
• Somerville, Janet (1887 - 1969): was a keen botanist. In her excursions into the Tasmanian bush she was often accompanied by Winifred Curtis, the pair having met in 1939. Botanical specimens collected by Somerville are now in the Tasmanian Herbarium, and proved invaluable to Curtis and her co-author Dennis Morris in preparing The student's flora of Tasmania for publication. Somerville was a keen member of the Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club. She published a number of papers on Tasmanian natural history from 1944, including in the Club's magazine, but her major work on the botanical history of Tasmania from 1642 to 1820 was unfinished at the time of her death.

Introduction:

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation brings together information from a broad range of sources. It is a register of the people and their communities including the many industries, corporations, research institutions, scientific societies and other organisations that have contributed to Australia's scientific, technological and medical heritage through all time. Importantly, it includes references to related archival materials, museum objects and collections, and a bibliography of historical published literature.

Research, curation and web publication is supported by the Swinburne University of Technology. Web publication is by serial editions with at least four editions per year. Each edition contains new entries and articles as well as corrections and additions to existing entries.

The Encyclopedia acknowledges all Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples of Australia, the traditional custodians of Country. It recognises and supports their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people of the world. We are incrementally building a gateway to sources documenting Australian First Nations' knowledge: see Theme: Australian First Nations.

We aim to be a 'living archive' and strive to represent all knowledge in an honest and respectful manner.

On 24 November 2022 (5.45pm), the Centre for Transformative Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology hosted an event at the Hawthorn Campus to celebrate the next phase in the life of the Encyclopedia. For more information see Launch 2022

Exhibitions - selected stories explored in more depth

• All exhibitions from 1996 onwards

Other useful resources

• Historical Records of Australian Science, Australian Academy of Science and CSIRO Publishing. The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific.
• Trove , National Library of Australia. Australia’s free online research portal. Trove is a collaboration between the NLA and hundreds of Partner organisations around Australia, including this Encyclopedia.
• History of Australian science, Australian Academy of Science. An introduction to the historical resources of the Academy.
• CSIROpedia, CSIRO and Swinburne University of Technology. Innovation shaping Australia and the world since 1916.
• IsisCB Explore, An open access discovery service from the History of Science Society; built on 50-years of data in the Isis Bibliography of the History of Science.
• Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. An advanced subject search of "Australia" is good starting point.

Data Overview

In all, there are well over 2.3 million data elements captured in 44 data tables. The data can be made available in postgresql format and json-ld courtesy of project with the Australian Research Data Commons.

If you would like to explore the network graph of the links between entities, shown below, go to the SVG view of the data for this edition. Hint: use the sliders to locate the graph - it is large. Also, you can use "Find in the Page" to find Entity ID numbers and use the Zoom function to move in and out. For example: A000200 is the node for the Australian Academy of Science.