Activities Associated with the Australian Academy of Science

The two most important organizations with which I have had an association since July 1949 have been The Australian National University, especially the John Curtin School of Medical Research and the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, and the Australian Academy of Science, and it is appropriate that I should include a chapter on the Academy in my autobiography. I was in the first group of scientists, apart from the Foundation Fellows, to become a Fellow (by election) in 1954, the year in which the Academy received its Royal Charter. From 1958 to 1961, I served as Secretary (Biological Sciences) and initiatives established then led to my appointment as Chairman of the Flora and Fauna Committee from 1967–74 and a member of the Fauna Committee from 1974–81. Even before my appointment as Director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies in 1973, I had become involved in some of the Academy committees on conservation: member of the Standing Committee on National Parks and Conservation from 1970–82 (Chairman, 1970–72), Chairman of the National Committee for SCOPE, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (an international committee), 1971–78, and member of the Standing Committee on the Environment, 1970–78.

I also served as a member of several Academy committees that warrant no more than a mention here: member of the Public Lectures Committee, 1977–83, the National Committee on the Environment, 1979–82, the National Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, 1980–82, Chairman of the National Committee for Medical Sciences, 1980–84, the Fellowship Establishment Committee, Australian Foundation for Science, 1990–91 and the Library Committee, 1995–2005. I was a Director of the Australian Foundation for Science from 1992–2001.

In 1970, the royalties that I received from the sale of the textbook Medical Virology were such that I started to make annual donations to the Academy to set up an Environment Fund, which by 1983 totalled $19,050. From 1984–97, Bobbie and I made more substantial donations ($230 000) to fund annual Fenner Conferences on the Environment, which were started in 1988. In 1992, I became involved in a video history project of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and subsequently initiated the Video Histories of Australian Scientists (now called Interviews with Australian Scientists) project within the Australian Academy of Science.