New players for academy leadership

Five distinguished Australian scientists will join the Australian Academy of Science council in 2015, replacing five equally distinguished scientists who will retire from the council.

The council, which has overall responsibility for managing the academy, comprises 17 Fellows. Members are elected by the Fellowship and represent a range of disciplines across the physical and biological sciences.

Three new members elected from the biological sciences include:

• Dr TJ Higgins (Honorary Fellow, CSIRO), who will also join the council’s executive committee as the Secretary for Biological Sciences
• Professor Ian Hume (Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney)
• Professor John Mattick (Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research)

Two new members elected from the physical sciences are:

• Professor Sue O’Reilly (Professor of Geology, Distinguished Professor of Macquarie University)
• Professor Mandyam V Srinivasan (Professor of Visual Neuroscience at the Queensland Brain Institute and the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering of The University of Queensland)

Retiring members include the current Secretary for Biological Sciences - Professor Marilyn Renfree, Professor Nalini Joshi, Professor Ian Frazer, Professor Rick Shine and Professor Mike Raupach.

The new council members will formally take up their positions after the academy’s 2015 annual general meeting to be held in May 2015.