If Fellows have been recognised with an award, please let us know via fellowship@science.org.au.
9 January 1940 – 14 April 2024
Professor Marcello Costa was a neuroscientist elected to the Academy in 1989 for his work on the autonomic innervation of the gastrointestinal system. He pioneered numerous histochemical methods and their application to define the neuronal architecture of the enteric nervous system. His studies of the neuronal reflexes underlying the patterns of motility of the intestine and his studies of the nature of the neurotransmitters involved led to the discovery that not only acetylcholine but also the peptide substance P are excitatory neurotransmitters in the intestine and that there are at least two inhibitory transmitters.
Professor Costa was born in Turin, Italy and studied medicine at the University of Turin. After his graduation in 1967 he worked as a lecturer and medical practitioner in Turin. In 1970 he moved with his wife Daniela to Australia, taking a position as Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Melbourne’s Department of Zoology. In 1973 he spent time as a Research Fellow at the universities of Helsinki and Turin before returning to the University of Melbourne in 1974. In 1975, Professor Costa moved to Flinders University where he spent the remainder of his career. His science memoir, Adventures in Gut Neuroscience, was published in 2023.
Professor Costa was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 2020 and received the Centenary Medal. In 1992 he received the Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana from the Italian Government. Professor Costa became a Bragg member of the Royal Institution of Australia in 2015 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Federation of Neurogastroenterology and Motility in 2018.
Professor Costa generously gave his time to the Academy, serving on many committees.
1 March 1944 – 5 April 2024
Professor Robert (Bob) Dewar was elected to the Academy in 1992 for his work on plasma dynamics. He developed a Lagrangian method for calculating the interaction between a wave and an inhomogeneous background and pioneered the use of Hamiltonian perturbation theory for simplifying the description of particle motions in the presence of large amplitude plasma waves.
After graduating with a BSc and MSc at the University of Melbourne, Professor Dewar completed his PhD at Princeton University in 1970. He was appointed Post-doctoral Fellow at the Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Maryland, and a year later as a Research Associate of the Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University (1971–73). He held positions as Research Fellow and then as Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University (1974–77) before returning to the Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton where he remained until 1982. Professor Dewar then returned to the ANU where he held numerous leadership roles including Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Research School of Physics and Engineering (1998-2001). Professor Dewar was made an Emeritus Professor at the ANU’s Research School of Physics and Engineering (2011–18) and then at the Mathematical Sciences Institute (2018–present), where he was an active contributor to the Fusion Plasma Theory Group.
Professor Dewar received the Centenary Medal and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1980. He was a member of the Academy’s National Committee for Physics (2000–03) and Pawsey Medal committee (2007).
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