Ralph Owen Slatyer 1929–2012

Professor Ralph Slatyer AC FAA FTSE FRS made foundational contributions to plant physiology and ecology. He was a towering figure in science policy as the nation's first Chief Scientist.
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Ralph Slatyer (16 April 1929–26 July 2012) had a distinguished career in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian National University, in plant-water relations and plant succession, leading the development of physiological plant ecology. 

He was the founding Professor of Environmental Biology at the Research School of Biological Sciences, at the Australian National University and then Director of the Research School of Biological Sciences, 1984–9. He was Australian Ambassador to United Nations Educational and Scientific Cultural Organisation (1978–81), and as Australia’s first Chief Scientist (1989–92), he set up the Cooperative Research Centres.

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About this memoir

This memoir was originally published in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 31(1), 2020. It was written by Graham Farquhar.

Fellow

Ralph Slatyer

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Conversation with scientist

Professor Ralph Slatyer (1929-2012), ecologist

Professor Ralph Slatyer interviewed by Dr Max Blythe in 1993. Ralph Slatyer was born in Melbourne in 1929. He was educated at the University of Western Australia where he received a BSc in 1951, an MSc in 1955 and a DSc in 1960. In 1951 he began work as a research scientist with the CSIRO in what became the Division of Land Research.
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