Campbell, Australia
November 6, 2003
Following
the retirement of the Division's leader for the past 25 years,
Dr Jim Peacock, CSIRO Plant Industry's current Assistant Chief,
Dr Jeremy Burdon, will take over as Chief on 15 December
this year.
"CSIRO is fortunate to have a
person of Dr Burdon's proven experience and abilities on hand to
assume the leadership role," Dr Garrett said.
"Jeremy has an outstanding track
record in research and he has also made important contributions
to research management in CSIRO, most recently as a Program
Leader and Assistant Chief in the Division of Plant Industry."
Dr Burdon - the Division's
Assistant Chief since 2001 - joined CSIRO in 1978 as a Queen
Elizabeth II Fellow.
His areas of professional interest
include plant - microbe interactions, and in particular
pathogens of agricultural crops, the use of fungi as biological
control agents for invasive weeds and understanding the
complexities of the interplay of parasitic and symbiotic
interactions in natural systems.
Dr Burdon has spent time as a
Fulbright Scholar and EC Stakman Visiting Professor at the USDA
Cereal Rust Laboratory in Minnesota, USA, and as a Visiting
Professor in the Department of Ecological Botany at the
University of Umea,Sweden.
In recent years, Dr Burdon's work
has been recognised through the award of the Gottschalk Medal by
the Australian Academy of Science (1987), an honorary Doctorate
by Umea University, Sweden (1996) and election to the Fellowship of the
Australian Academy of Science
(1996).
"I would
like to take this opportunity to thank Jim Peacock for his
wonderful contribution not only to the Division, but to CSIRO as
a whole and I'm sure he will continue to make significant
contributions to Australian science in his 'retirement'," Dr
Garrett said. |