Bear, Isabel (Joy) (1927 - 2021)

Summary

Joy Bear was a prominent researcher in the field of solid-state chemistry and metallurgy. She joined the Council for Scientific Research as a junior laboratory Assistant in 1944, was the first woman in CSIRO to be promoted to the research staff, and intimately retired as Senior Principal Research Scientist in 1992. This was a triumph over entrenched workplace practices that neither promoted women scientists nor recognised their research talents. In her research she discovered a number of previously unknown metastable zirconium sulfate hydrates. In particular she is noted for her chemical characterisation (in collaboration with Richard Thomas) and naming of "petrichor", a volatile oil that is associated with the smell of rain. Bear received a number of awards recognising her research: she was the first woman to receive the Leighton memorial Medal from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Her book Aluminia to zirconia: the history of the CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry, co-authored with T. Beigler and T. R. Scott, was published in 2005.

Details

Chronology

1944 - 1950

Career position - Junior Laboratory Assistant, Minerals Utilization Section, CSIR(O) Division of Industrial Chemistry

1950

Education - Associate Diploma of Applied Science, Melbourne Technical College

1950

Education - Associate Diploma of Applied Chemistry, Melbourne Technical College

1950 - 1951

Career position - Experimental Scientist at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, United Kingdom

1951 - 1953

Career position - Research Assistant at University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

1953 - 1958

Career position - Experimental Officer, Minerals Utilization Section, CSIRO Division of Industrial Chemistry

1958 - 1959

Career position - Experimental Officer, CSIRO Minerals Utilization Section

1959 - 1967

Career position - Experimental Officer, CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry

1967 - 1972

Career position - Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry

1970

Education - Diploma of Applied Chemistry, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

1972 - 1979

Career position - Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry

1974 - 2021

Award - Fellow, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy

1978

Education - Senior Doctoral Degree in Applied Science, Victoria Institute of Colleges

1979 - 1988

Career position - Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry

1986

Award - Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in recognition of service to science, particularly in the field of mine chemistry

1986 - 2021

Award - Fellow, Royal Australian Chemical Institute

1988

Award - Leighton Memorial Medal, Royal Australian Chemical Institute

1988 - 1992

Career position - Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Mineral Products

1992

Life event - Retired

1992 - 1997

Career position - Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Division of Mineral Products (later Minerals Division)

2001

Career event - Alumina to Zirconia (with Tom Beigler and Tom Scott) published by CSIRO

2005

Award - Inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women

Related entries

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Articles

• O'Neil, 'Isabel Joy Bear: a Biographical Note', WISENET Journal, 60 (July) (2002), http://www.wisenet-australia.org/issue60/isabel_bear.htm. Details

Books

• Bear, I. Joy.; Biegler, Tom; Scott, Tom. R., Alumina to zirconia: the history of CSIRO Division of Mineral Chemistry (Clayton, Victoria: CSIRO Minerals, 2001), 426 pp, https://ebooks.publish.csiro.au/content/alumina-zirconia. Details
• Spurling, Heather; and Symington, David, Joy Bear (Blackburn, Vic.: Dove Communications, 1986), 8 pp. https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/People-in-Science-Joy-Bear.pdf. Details

Journal Articles

• Bear, I. J.; and Thomas, R. G., 'Nature of argillaceous odour', Nature, 201 (1964), 993-5. https://doi.org/10.1038/201993a0. Details
• Bear, I. J.; and Thomas, R. G., 'Genesis of petrichor', Geochimica et cosmochimica acta, 30 (9) (1966), 869-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7037(66)90025-1. Details
• McNamara, Nicole; Kopinathan, Anitha; Wolff, Helen; Spurling, Thomas H.; Simpson, Gregory; and Locock, Katherine E. S., 'Breaking down barriers: standing on the shoulders of Australia's early female chemists', Australian journal of chemistry, 76 (2) (2023), 63-73. https://www.publish.csiro.au/CH/pdf/CH22235. Details

Resources

• 'Bear, Isabel Joy (1927-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1475847. Details

Resource Sections

• Poynton, H., 'The smell of rain: how CSIRO invented a new word', in The Conversation, The Conversation, 2015, https://theconversation.com/the-smell-of-rain-how-csiro-invented-a-new-word-39231. Details
• Ward, C., 'Isabel 'Joy' Bear', in CSIROpedia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), 2021, https://csiropedia.csiro.au/Bear-Isabel-Joy/. Details

See also

• Alvarez, Amaya, 'Writing about Women in the History of Science: a Study of Women at the CSIR 1930-1950', MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1993. Details
• Beale, Bob, Engineering a Legacy: Memories of the journey of CSIRO Chemical Engineering (Clayton, Victoria: CSIRO Minerals, 2005), 124 pp. pages 2, 34. Details
• Herd, Margaret ed., Who's who in Australia 2002 (Melbourne: Crown Content, 2001), 2020 pp. Details