Em Professor Ian Chubb, Chairman Elect

Professor Ian Chubb was Chief Scientist for Australia from May 2011 to January 2016.

Prior to that, Professor Chubb was Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University from January 2001 to March 2011; Vice-Chancellor of Flinders University of South Australia for six years and the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Provost) of Monash University for two years. While at Monash he served as Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics for 16 months.

He was Chair of the Commonwealth’s Higher Education Council from September 1990 to December 1994 and was, until mid-1994, Deputy Chair of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training (the Commonwealth’s peak advisory body on all matters related to the Employment, Education and Training portfolio).

From January 1986 to September 1990, Professor Chubb was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong and Honorary Professor of Biology. During the period 1978-1985 he was an academic in the School of Medicine of Flinders University. Before that he was at Oxford University: 1971-1977 he was a Wellcome Foundation Scholar (Christ Church), a Junior Research Fellow (St John’s College), and a Royal Society Research Fellow. He spent 1969-1971 as a JF & C Heymans Research Fellow at the University of Ghent, Belgium.

Professor Chubb’s research focused on the neurosciences and was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Grants Scheme and by various Foundations.

Professor Chubb was President of the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) for 2000 and 2001, Vice-President for 1998 and 1999 and an elected member, or member, of the Board of the AVCC between 1996 and 2006. From January 2000 to December 2001 He was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council; and the Executive Officer of its replacement, The Commonwealth Science Council from 2013-2015. He serves, or has served, on numerous other Boards and Committees related to his university or Commonwealth responsibilities – in universities and in the public and private sectors.

In 1999 Professor Chubb was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “service to the development of higher education policy and its implementation at state, national and international levels, as an administrator in the tertiary education sector, and to research particularly in the field of neuroscience”.

In 2006 he was made a Companion (AC) in the order for “service to higher education, including research and development policy in the pursuit of advancing the national interest socially, economically, culturally and environmentally, and to the facilitation of a knowledge-based global economy”.

Professor Chubb was the ACT’s Australian of the Year in 2011. He has been awarded six honorary doctorates: a DSc by Flinders University in 2000; a D.Litt by Charles Darwin University and a D.Univ by the Australian National University, both in 2011; an LLD by Monash University in 2012, a D.Univ by the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2014 and an LLD by the University of Melbourne in 2015.

He was elected a Fellow of the Australian College of Education in 2008 and a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2014.

He was awarded the Academy Medal of the Australian Academy of Science in 2016 and was elected Fellow of the Academy in 2017. He is a member of the Council of the Academy of Science, chairs its Education Committee and is a member of its Policy Advisory Committee.

He was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001, the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion by Indiana University in 2011.