Roderick Weir Home

Last updated

Roderick Weir "R.W." Home (born 6 January 1939), is an Australian academic and historian of Science. Home has been Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne from 1975 to 2002 on his retirement. Previously he was lecturer and then senior lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Contents

He was Foundation Director of the Australian Science Archives Project (ASAP) 1985-96 and Chairman of its National Advisory Board. The work of ASAP is now carried on by the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, a leading centre for the online documentation of the history of Australian science and technology. Professor Home is a prolific author, with major historical works to his credit; for example, documenting the scientific achievements of Ferdinand von Mueller, the German-Austrian scientist who was appointed Government Botanist for Victoria by Governor Charles La Trobe in 1853. [1]

Career highlights

Although Professor Home retired from the University of Melbourne in December 2002, he continues to play a leading role in documenting and preserving the history of Australian science as Editor of the Historical Records of Australian Science (HRAS), the journal of record for the history of science, pure and applied, in Australia and the southwest Pacific.

Related Research Articles

Ferdinand von Mueller German-Australian botanist (1825-1896)

Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria (Australia) by Governor Charles La Trobe in 1853, and later director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. He also founded the National Herbarium of Victoria. He named many Australian plants.

Royal Society of Victoria

The Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) is the oldest scientific society in the state of Victoria in Australia.

Harrie Massey Australian mathematical physicist

Sir Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey was an Australian mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics.

Henry Caselli Richards

Henry Caselli (H.C) Richards, was an Australian professor of geology, academic and teacher.

Govind Chandra Pande was a well-known Indian historian of the Vedic and the Buddhist periods. He served as professor of ancient history and vice-chancellor at Jaipur and Allahabad universities. He was also the chairman of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla for several years, the Chairman of Allahabad Museum Society and the Chairman of Central Tibetan Society, Sarnath Varanasi.

Alan George Lewers Shaw was an Australian historian and author of several text books and historiographies on Australian and Victorian history. He taught at the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney, and was Professor of History at Monash University from 1964 until his retirement in 1981.

University of Melbourne Faculty of Arts

The Faculty of Arts is one of the largest faculties at The University of Melbourne. It is the University's home of teaching and research in the humanities, social sciences and languages. Teaching of the arts and humanities at The University of Melbourne began when the University was first opened to students in 1855, and the Faculty of Arts officially opened in 1903.

Leslie H. Martin Australian physicist

Sir Leslie Harold Martin, was an Australian physicist. He was one of the 24 Founding Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science and had a significant influence on the structure of higher education in Australia as chairman of the Australian Universities Commission from 1959 until 1966. He was Professor of Physics at the University of Melbourne from 1945 to 1959, and Dean of the Faculty of Military Studies and Professor of Physics at the University of New South Wales at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra from 1967 to 1970. He was the Defence Scientific Adviser and chairman of the Defence Research and Development Policy Committee from 1948 to 1968, and a member of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission from 1958 to 1968. In this role he was an official observer at several British nuclear weapons tests in Australia.

Frederic Raphael Jevons was a British Professor of biochemistry and later an Australian educator. He was informally known as Fred Jevons and since 1977 lived and worked mostly in Australia.

<i>Persoonia arborea</i> Species of shrub

Persoonia arborea, commonly known as tree geebung, is a species of large shrub or small tree that is endemic to Victoria, Australia.

<i>Muelleria</i> (journal) Academic journal

Muelleria is a peer-reviewed scientific journal on botany published by the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. It focuses on topics relating to plants, algae, and fungi in the southern hemisphere and Australia in particular. The journal was named in honour of Victorian Government botanist Ferdinand von Mueller. Muelleria commenced publication in 1955 with funding from the Maud Gibson Trust. The trust was initiated in 1945 following the donation of £20,000 by Maud Gibson, a daughter of William Gibson, founder of the Foy & Gibson department store chain.

Wendlandia psychotrioides is a species of shrubs or small trees, constituting part of the plant family Rubiaceae.

The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society is an educational center located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

Sophie Charlotte Ducker was a German-born Australian botanist. She was awarded the Mueller Medal in 1996.

Verticordia jamiesonii is a flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is small shrub with short leaves crowded on young branchlets and white to pale pink flowers in small groups on the ends of branches in early spring.

Diana Joan "Ding" Dyason (1919–1989) was a highly respected Australian lecturer and historian of medicine with major teaching and life-long research interests in public health and germ theory. She is most notable in the significant impact she had in her scholarly discipline. As a woman who firstly worked in the traditional roles of research assistant and demonstrator in the non-traditional discipline of science, Dyason progressed to become a leader at a major Australian university, overcoming barriers of gender and culture at a national and international level, receiving awards and honors in the process. She broke through the gender-based 'glass ceiling' in the academic workplace to establish and develop the new interdisciplinary field of study of the History and Philosophy of Science that brings together The Two Cultures of the sciences and the humanities.

Shurlee Lesley Swain, is an Australian social welfare historian, researcher and author. Since August 2017 she has been an Emeritus Professor at the Australian Catholic University (ACU).

References

  1. R.W Home, A.M. Lucas, S. L. Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt, M. Wells. Regardfully Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, Peter Lang Publishing (Berne), Vols. 1-3, 1998-2006.