Professor Andrew Blakers AO FAA FTSE – Officer of the Order of Australia
Professor Keith Nugent AO FAA – Officer of the Order of Australia
Professor Veena Sahajwalla AO FAA FTSE – Officer of the Order of Australia
Dr John Kirkegaard FAA – 2026 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Agriculture and Life Science, Kansas State University
Professor Jennifer L Martin AC FAA – Bragg Medal, Society of Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand
Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić FAA – Honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa), University of Zagreb
Academy President Professor Chennupati Jagadish and Chief Executive Anna-Maria Arabia had the privilege of visiting Professor Stephen Boyden FAA, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday, making him the Academy’s oldest living Fellow.
Professor Boyden is a national treasure whose contributions to immunology and veterinary science have been groundbreaking. During the visit, Professor Boyden recalled his “eureka moment”, which led to the invention of the Boyden Chamber, a crucial tool in understanding how white blood cells respond to infections.
Beyond his scientific achievements, Professor Boyden is an advocate for sustainability and living in harmony with the environment – a passion that, at age 98, led him to publish Biorenaissance, a book praised in The Lancet.
Professor Boyden recalled scientific discoveries and historical moments in remarkable detail, including his collaborations with Frank Fenner and HC Coombs, key figures in Australia’s post-war scientific expansion. Their vision helped shape the Academy and ANU, laying the foundations for much of the nation’s science infrastructure.
They were instrumental in laying the foundation for the Australian science infrastructure and programs we have today.
We often speak of “science for the public good”, but Professor Boyden and his peers lived this principle before the term was widely used. As public investment in science faces new challenges, his story reminds us that past barriers – however insurmountable they seemed – were overcome through persistence and vision.
Professor Dr Rüdiger Wehner FAA of the University of Zurich visited the Academy in January to sign the Fellows’ Charter Book. He was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy in 2017 but until now had not had the opportunity to sign the book and receive his certificate. At the event were corresponding Member Professor Eric Warrant from Lund University in Sweden, who was elected and signed the Charter book in 2024, other Fellows, Academy staff, Professor Wehner’s wife and some of his colleagues, and a guest from the Swiss embassy.
24 May 1942 to 30 December 2024
Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart was made a Corresponding Member of the Academy in 2021 for the work which earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, jointly with Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Bernard L Feringa. Sir Fraser pioneered the development of the use of molecular recognition and self-assembly processes in template-directed protocols for the synthesis of mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs), such as catenanes and rotaxanes. These MIMs led to the design and syntheses of molecular shuttles, switches and machines, such as artificial molecular pumps. This is succinctly explained in the Academy’s short video on Sir Fraser.
Sir Fraser was born in Scotland and received his BSc, PhD and DSc from Edinburgh University. He received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council of Canada which took him to Queens University in Ontario (1967–69). Fraser then returned to the UK as chemistry lecturer at the University of Sheffield (1978–82). During this period, he was seconded to ICI’s Catalysis Group. From 1982 to 1991 he was Reader in Chemistry at the University of Sheffield, then moved to University of Birmingham in 1990 as Professor of Organic Chemistry, and from 1993, Head of the School of Chemistry. In 1997 Fraser moved to the United States, to UCLA. Here he was Saul Winstein Professor of Organic Chemistry (1997–2003), then Fred Kavli Professor of NanoSystems (2003–07). From 2002 to 2007 Fraser was also the Director of the California NanoSystems Institute. In 2008 Fraser joined Northwestern University as Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry. In 2023 he moved to the University of Hong Kong as Chair Professor of Chemistry. He had held a Visiting Professorship at UNSW since 2019.
Sir Fraser was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1994), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences(2012) and the US National Academy of Inventors (2019); Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2008) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (2011); Fellow (2018), later Distinguished Fellow (2020) of the Royal Society of New South Wales; member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2014); and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018).
Sir Fraser was awarded many prizes internationally including a Humboldt Fellowship (1998), the King Faisal Prize in Science (2007), the Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2007), the Royal Society’s Davy Medal (2008), the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2010), and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary prize (2014). In 2007 he was appointed Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II.
He was the recipient of many honorary degrees including from the University of Birmingham, the University of Twente, the University of Sheffield, Trinity College Dublin, St Andrews University, the University of Nottingham, Universidad Autonoma Madrid, Yerevan State Medical University, the University of Southern Denmark, the University of Brasilia and Hong Kong Baptist University.
Sir Fraser was a proud mentor of many young scientists and believed this would be his greatest legacy.
© 2025 Australian Academy of Science
