News & Media

UOW Professor wins prestigious national award

The Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Annual Awards Dinner was held last Friday evening (November 28) at the University of Melbourne to announce the recipients of the Institute’s national awards for 2008.

Professor Gordon Wallace, Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) and the Executive Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) is this year’s winner of the H.G Smith Memorial Award.

The H.G. Smith award is one of the RACI’s most prestigious awards and acknowledges Professor Wallace’s contribution to a branch of chemical science, and the volume and quality of work published in the last ten years of his research.

Submissions nominating Professor Wallace for the award spoke highly of his contributions to chemical science. One submission said:

“Professor Wallace has made the most outstanding research contributions to the Chemistry profession in Australia over the past ten years, particularly in the areas of organic conductors, nanomaterials and electrochemical probe analysis.

“The national and international significance of his contributions in these areas between 1997 and 2007 can be highlighted by his diverse collaborations with several Australian companies and research organisations in Australia and overseas.”

The H.G. Smith Award is in honour of chemist Henry George Smith (1852-1924), who wrote approximately one hundred scientific publications, including three books: Research on the Eucalypts (1902; 2nd ed. 1920), Research on the Pines of Australia (1910) and Wood Fibres of Some Australian Timbers (1924).

Smith was also a pioneer teacher of organic chemistry, which he taught for Sydney Technical College, conducting the classes in his own laboratory at the museum. After retiring form the museum in 1921 he joined his friend and colleague Professor John Read at the University of Sydney.

More information about RACI can be found at http://www.raci.org.au/

Last reviewed: 1 December, 2008