Section Navigation
About ARC
Breadcrumb Navigation
ARC
Advisory Council
Biographies of Members
Professor Margaret Sheil FTSE FRACI C Chem
Professor Margaret Sheil is currently CEO of the Australian Research Council, having been appointed in August 2007. Professor Sheil is a member of the Cooperative Research Centres Committee, the Prime Minister’s Science Innovation and Engineering Council and the National Research Infrastructure Council. She is also a member of the Board of the Australia-India Council, the Advisory Council of the Science Industry Endowment Fund and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
From 2002 to 2007 she was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Wollongong (UOW). She joined UOW as a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry in 1990, was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 2000 and appointed Dean of Science at UOW in January 2001. Prior to joining UOW she held positions as a Research Fellow at the Australian National University and the University of Utah, USA.
Professor Sheil has a PhD and BSc(Hons) in Chemistry from the University of New South Wales. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE) and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI).
Professor Peter Buckskin PSM FACE
Professor Peter Buckskin is the Dean of the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research within the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of South Australia.
Professor Buckskin has worked as a teacher in Western Australia and South Australia, Ministerial Adviser, Superintendent of Schools, and a Senior Executive at both State and Federal level. For over ten years he worked as an officer in the Australian Government’s Senior Executive Service, where he occupied a number of strategic positions in the portfolios of Aboriginal Affairs, Employment, Education and Training.
Professor Buckskin served one term as a Commissioner on the Australian Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
In recognition of his contribution to Aboriginal education, Professor Buckskin has received numerous awards and honours. In the 2001 Australia Day Honours, he was awarded the Commonwealth Public Service Medal in recognition of his outstanding public service in pursuing equality in education for Australia's Indigenous peoples. In 2002 he became a Patron of Principals Australia’s Dare to Lead Program, which encourages and supports Australian school Principals in improving Indigenous education outcomes and working for Reconciliation in their schools. In 2003 the International Council on Education for Teaching awarded him the annual Frank H Klassen Award for his leadership and contribution to teacher education. In 2005 Professor Buckskin won the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training Award for Outstanding Achievement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education at the National Deadly Awards held in Sydney.
In 2007 Professor Buckskin became a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators.
He is currently Chair of the National Indigenous Higher Education Network, Chair of the South Australian Aboriginal Education and Training Consultative Committee, a Director on the Board of the Lowitja Institute and an Executive Member of the World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium.
Professor Stephen Garton
Professor Stephen Garton was appointed as the Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of The University of Sydney in August 2009. Professor Garton is a graduate of The University of Sydney (BA) and The University of New South Wales (PhD) and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Royal Australian Historical Society. His area of research expertise is Australian history, although he has also published in the fields of American and British history. His major books include Medicine and Madness: A Social History of Insanity in NSW 1880-1940 (1988), Out of Luck: Poor Australians and Social Welfare 1788-1988 (1990), The Cost of War: Australians Return (1996) and Histories of Sexuality: Antiquity to the Sexual Revolution (2004). He is also a co-author, with Shane White, Stephen Robertson and Graham White, of Playing the Numbers (2010), a study of the culture of the numbers rackets in Harlem in the 1920s, published by Harvard University Press. He has also published extensively in such fields as the history of psychiatry, crime, poverty, social policy, eugenics, policing, masculinity and returned soldiers. More recently Professor Garton has published on the history of parole in the American South and the emergence of criminal psychiatry in New York State.
At The University of Sydney, Professor Garton has been Head of the Department of History (1996 to 1998), an Associate Dean and Pro Dean in the Faculty of Arts (1991 to 1995 and 1999) and a member of the Academic Board for nearly fifteen years. He was appointed Professor of History in 2000 and Challis Professor in 2004. From 2001 to 2009 he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts, before taking up the role of Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. In addition, Professor Garton has been a member of the Editorial Board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association and the Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Professor Garton has been a Chief Investigator on a number of ARC grants under the Discovery Projects, Linkage Projects and Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development schemes.
Professor Margaret Harding
Professor Margaret Harding is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW).
As the inaugural Dean of Graduate Research at UNSW (2005 to 2009), Professor Harding established the Graduate Research School as the central administrative unit for UNSW’s 3200 higher degree research students. She was responsible for all higher degree research training policy and implemented a range of new policies and procedures to improve the quality of research training, delivering improved new enrolments, completion and attrition rates and high levels of student satisfaction. Between April 2008 and December 2009, she concurrently held the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Strategy), with a major role in improving opportunities and support for researchers in attracting external research funding.
Professor Harding holds PhD (1987) and DSc (2002) degrees from The University of Sydney and was awarded a Personal Chair in Chemistry in 2005. She held a postdoctoral position at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France (1986 to 1988) and a Ramsay Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in the UK (1988 to 1990). She held an academic position in the School of Chemistry at The University of Sydney (1990 to 2005), was the DNA Programme Manager in the CRC for Molecular Engineering (1992-1998), Deputy Head of the School of Chemistry (1999 to 2004) and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research in the Faculty of Science (2002 to 2004). She was a recipient of The University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Supervision in 2002.
Professor Harding's research interests are in biological and medicinal chemistry, with current programmes centred on antifreeze proteins and ligand-DNA interactions. She has published over 100 research articles, been awarded the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Rennie and Biota Medals, and held Australian Academy of Science Fellowships in France, the UK and the USA and serves on the Editorial Board of Medicinal Chemistry and MiniReviews in Medicinal Chemistry.
Professor Harding has held ARC grants under the Discovery Projects and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities schemes. She was a member of the ARC College of Experts (Physics, Chemistry and Geosciences) (2004 to 2006), was Chair of the ARC International Linkages Scheme Panel (2004 to 2006), and has served on the ARC Federation Fellowships Selection Panel and as Chair of the ARC Scrutiny Committee.
Professor Paul Johnson
Professor Paul Johnson is Vice-Chancellor of The University of Western Australia. Professor Johnson was previously the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University from April 2007 to December 2011. Professor Johnson received his doctorate from Oxford University in 1982 while working as a Research Fellow at Nuffield College. In 1984 he joined the London School of Economics (LSE) as a lecturer in social history. He became Professor of Economic History and Head of Department at the LSE in 1999 before becoming the LSE's Deputy Director in 2004. His research has focused on two distinct areas: the economic and social development of Britain since 1850 and the economic impact of population ageing. Professor Johnson has published eleven authored or edited books and more than 60 articles and chapters, and has been the recipient of research grants valued at more than $4 million. His most recent book, Making the Market: Victorian Origins of Corporate Capitalism was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010.
Professor Johnson has been an expert adviser on pension reform and the economics of demographic change to the World Bank, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, the British Government and the House of Lords. He has served on a number of professional councils, learned societies and professional bodies in the UK including the Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Grants Board, the Council of the Economic History Society and the Governing Board of the Pensions Policy Institute. He is a director and member of the Investment Committee of UniSuper, the Australian higher education superannuation fund. He was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society in 1978 and to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2001.
Professor Amanda Lawson
Professor Amanda Lawson is Dean of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong (UOW), an appointment she took up after several years as the inaugural head of the School of Art and Design in the Faculty of Creative Arts. She has more than 25 years' experience in the arts in Australia and during that time has been the director of several organisations, including the Crafts Council of NSW and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. She has also worked at the Australia Council, with NSW State and Regional Development, and as an independent arts consultant. She has expertise in arts marketing, audience development and collections and cultural project management.
Professor Lawson gained a BA from the University of Edinburgh and an Honours degree from the University of Wollongong before completing a PhD in Australian Literature at the University of Sydney in 2002. At UOW she is director of the University Art Collection and teaches in the areas of curatorial and professional practice.
Professor Lawson's current research includes a project funded under the ARC’s Linkage Projects scheme to trial new approaches to collections documentation and access. An interdisciplinary collaboration across the Faculties of Creative Arts and Informatics, with the Australian Museum as partner, this project has led to the pilot Virtual Museum of the Pacific, which was launched in late 2009. Amongst many industry and board appointments, Professor Lawson was chair of Arts NSW Visual Arts/Craft Committee from 2004 to 2008 and a founding board member of Museums and Galleries NSW. She is on the UOW Planning and Quality Committee, was a member of the Humanities and Creative Arts Research Evaluation Committee for the 2009 Excellence in Research Australia trial and was appointed as a trustee of the Australian Museum in 2010.
Professor Ian Young
Professor Ian Young commenced as Vice-Chancellor and President of The Australian National University in March 2011. Professor Young was previously Vice-Chancellor and President of Swinburne University of Technology from December 2003. Prior to that appointment he held the dual positions of Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences and Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at The University of Adelaide. Professor Young has also held positions at The University of New South Wales, James Cook University and the Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie, Germany.
Professor Young’s academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering, a Master of Engineering Science and a PhD in Ocean Engineering, all from James Cook University. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (FIEAust) and a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE). In addition to his work as Vice-Chancellor, he continues to conduct research focused on coastal and ocean engineering and particularly wind generated ocean waves. His distinguished academic career spans more than 20 years and he has published a number of books and is the principal author and co-author of many journal papers and more than 100 research papers.
Professor Young has been the recipient of numerous research grants from a range of sources including the Australian Research Council (Discovery Projects, Linkage Projects and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities) and the US Office of Naval Research. As a consultant, he has worked extensively with the coastal and offshore oil industries in Australia, Europe, the USA and Asia, particularly in the development of economical and environmentally sustainable offshore oil and gas production.
