Person

Mather, Keith Benson (1922 - 2003)

Born
6 January 1922
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Died
10 January 2003
Eugene, Oregon, United States of America
Occupation
Physicist

Summary

Keith Mather was a scientific explorer, research physicist and lecturer. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Adelaide, he stayed on to lecture and research in optical spectroscopy and to complete a Masters Degree in physics. A few years later, Mather went to Washington University (USA) and then Birmingham University (UK), followed by a one year lectureship period at the University of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Upon returning to Australia, he joined the Atomic Physics Section of CSIRO and then the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. In 1956 he returned to CSIRO, but this time to the Australian Antarctic Division where he later became Director of their Mawson research station. Antarctica's Mount Mather is named after him. Next Mather worked for the University of Melbourne followed by the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute, USA where he was appointed Director (1963). When he retired in 1986 he was Vice-Chancellor for Research.

Details

Chronology

1942
Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc), University of Adelaide
1943 - 1945
Career position - Demonstrator in Physics, University of Adelaide
1944
Education - Master of Science (Electrical Engineering), University of Adelaide
1946
Career position - Lecturer in Physics, University of Adelaide
1946 - 1949
Education - Science and Industry Endowment Fund Scholar at Washington University , St. Louis, USA (undertaking a PhD)
1949 - 1950
Career position - ICI Fellow, University of Birmingham, UK
1950 - 1951
Career position - Lecturer in Physics, University of Ceylon
1952 - 1954
Career position - Research Officer at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Atomic Physics Section
1954 - 1956
Career position - Senior Research Officer, Australian Atomic Energy Commission
1957
Career position - Physicist-in-charge at the CSIRO Australian Antarctic Division's Mawson Station, Antarctica
1958 - 1961
Career position - Lecturer in Physics, University of Melbourne
1961 - 1962
Career position - Visiting Research Geophysicist at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, USA
1962 - 1963
Career position - Associate Professor of Physics at the Geophysical Institute
1963 - 1976
Career position - Director and Professor of Physics at the Geophysical Institute
1976 - 1986
Career position - Vice-Chancellor for Research and Advanced Study, University of Alaska

Published resources

Resources

Resource Sections

See also

  • Smith, Susan and Spurling, Thomas H., 'The Science and Industry Endowment Fund: supporting the development of Australian science', Historical Records of Australian Science, 26 (1) (2015), 58-83, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR14027. Details

McCarthy, G.J.

EOAS ID: biogs/P001745b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 November (Ballambar - Gariwerd calendar - early summer - season of butterflies)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#ballambar
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P001745b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260