David Vernon Boger 1939–2019
Emeritus Professor David Boger AC FAA FTSE FRS was an outstanding rheologist who made important contributions to fluid mechanics and to the problem of waste disposal in the mining industry.
David Boger was born in Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at Bucknell University. After receiving his PhD from the University of Illinois (1965), he migrated to Australia and became a citizen there. He became an outstanding rheologist at Monash University. He is especially noted for his development of the vane method for determining yield stress in particulate materials, and for the development of Boger fluids that enabled clarification of some puzzles in the study of viscoelastic liquids. He eventually became Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. There, he made many contributions to the problem of waste disposal in the mining industry, especially the solution of the red mud problem arising from the aluminium industry. After retirement from Melbourne, he returned to Monash University and also spent time at the University of Florida. He received many honours for his work, and he is survived by three children and six grandchildren.
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About this memoir
This memoir was commissioned and originally published by Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society. It was published in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 37(2), 2026, with minor amendments. It was written by Tamarapu Sridhar and Roger Ian Tanner.
