M A Sargent Medal Past Winners
2011 - Dr Paul Wilson FIEAust
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The 2011 MA Sargent Medal was awarded to Dr. Paul Wilson FIEAust, whose impressive career in engineering spans over 48 years and across both the professional and academic sectors. Dr. Wilson is a highly regarded academic and has spent 18 years as a senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). During his time with QUT, Dr. Wilson specialised in the fields of electrical engineering with a focus on electrical networking, instrumentation and control, control theory and aerospace/avionics engineering. |
With a BSc (Electrical Engineering) from Salford University in the UK, Masters of Engineering by full thesis from QUT, and a PhD from the Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering at James Cook University, Dr. Wilson has allowed the combination of academic ability and practical experience to result in profound technical knowledge and performance
2010 - Dr David Skellern HonFIEAust CPEng
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Dr Skellern has had a most distinguished career, starting as a young engineer with the Dept of Civil Aviation, before moving into radioastronomy instrumentation research followed by lecturing appointments in communications engineering at the University of Sydney, then a professorial appointment at Macquarie University, then senior executive industry positions at Radiata Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and now as CEO of National ICT Australia. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Institution in 2008 and has achieved other awards.
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2009 - Dr Keith Hilless AM FIEAust
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The winner in 2009 was Dr Keith Hilless AM FIEAust, an outstanding engineer who has given many years of committed service to Queensland's energy industry in the fields of electricity supply and power engineering. His eminence in the practice of electrical engineering and exceptional engineering management and leadership capabilities were demonstrated by the significant roles he has played over many years at the most senior levels within Queensland's public sector.
(Please note: Since 2009, the year of the medal has been changed to the year it is given |
2007 - Professor Vic Gosbell FIEAust, CPEng
The 2007 Medal was presented to Professor Vic Gosbell FIEAust, CPEng on the 6 June 2008, in recognition of his leading role in setting up the benchmark for a national power quality and his valuable contributions in developing technical innovative changes to the power industry including National Standards.
Professor Gosbell established and led the Integral Energy Power Quality and Reliability Centre at Wollongong University. Under his leadership the Centre has been a major player in the development of national power quality practices.
2006 - Dr Barry Inglis
Dr Barry Inglis is the first Chief Executive and Chief Metrologist of the National Measurement Institute in Australia, which was formed in July 2004 through the amalgamation of the National Measurement Laboratory, the National Standards Commission and the Australian Government Analytical Laboratories.
Dr Inglis is involved in all aspects of the technical infrastructure in Australia. He was a Commissioner on the governing board of the National Standards Commission, the body responsible for legal metrology, and is Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA), the national laboratory accreditation body. He is also a member of the Council of Standards Australia, the national standards-writing body.
Since 1994 he has been the principal Australian representative for all metrological matters and he has an outstanding international reputation in metrology, particularly in the field of electrical standards.
2005 - Noel Godfrey
Noel Godfrey has spent over 45 years as a hands-on Electrical Engineering practitioner in applications covering a wide range of industries and electrical sub-disciplines. After graduating with honours from the University of NSW in 1961, he worked for Australian Iron & Steel Ltd at Port Kembla Steelworks for five years, engaged in the commissioning and project engineering of new rolling mills and process lines that were part of a large expansion program at that time. It was during this time that he developed his passion for electrical machinery, variable speed drives and feedback control systems.
To pursue a greater understanding of these systems and techniques, Noel moved to Canada for four years to work in the Drive Systems Department of Canadian General Electric in Peterborough, Ontario where he was engaged in the design of drives and control systems in the metals, paper, marine and general industries. On returning to Australia, he joined BHP Engineering (later Hatch Associates), where he followed a technical career path for the remainder of his career. Noel retired from Hatch Associates as Principal Consultant Electrical Engineering at the end of 2005 and is now engaged in part-time consulting work.
During his career Noel has been a governor of the Sydney University Electrical Engineering Foundation, a member of Course Advisory Committees of UTS and UNSW and a member of the Steering Committee of the Centre for Industrial Control Science at the of the University of Newcastle. He has been a member of the Industry Visiting Committee of the CSIRO Division of Applied Physics, and was a Project Fellow for the Warren Centre Projects on Advanced Process Control and Advanced Surface Mining Technology. Until last year he was chairman of SAA Standards Committee EL/34 Electrical Power Quality and a member of EL/27 Power Electronics.
Noel has been the author or co-author of over 20 published papers, winning the John Madsen Medal for the best paper in the IEAust Electrical Transactions in 1986. He has designed and delivered courses and guest lectures on variable speed drives, feedback control systems and power quality and has been the co-inventor of two patented systems associated with the control of synchronous machines.
His most recent achievements have been associated with the design and commissioning of the drive control systems for a new type of dragline excavator configuration that was invented at the CRC for Mining Technology and Equipment at the University of Queensland. The installation of the first production version of the "UDD Dragline" was sponsored and managed by BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance and was successful in achieving around 25% increase in production rates. By the end of 2006, a total of seven draglines will have been converted to the UDD configuration within BMA's coal operations.
Noel is a Member of IEAust and IEEE.
2004 - Professor Richard Middleton
The 2004 MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Richard Middleton at a function held in Newcastle on 17 June. The award is made annually by the Electrical College to an electrical engineer who has made a significant contribution through technical innovation to the practice and/or science of electrical engineering.
Professor Middleton is one of Australia's most outstanding electrical engineers. After completing a combined BSc (Physics/Maths) BE (electrical) Hons I with University Medal in 1983 he began a PhD thesis titled ‘Modern Continuous and Discrete Control'. He obtained his Doctorate in 1985 from The University of Newcastle. He subsequently became a member of the academic staff. He completed significant research and development work and ultimately became a Professor in 2000.
Middleton's remarkable career has covered deep theoretical research work in systems and control engineering as well as a vast number of high-level contributions of an applied engineering nature. He is one of a handful of engineers in the world who have managed to achieve international recognition for both theoretical and applied contributions. His breadth of knowledge has enabled him to virtually cover the complete electrical engineering curriculum. His research work is at the forefront of international developments and is also extremely well known internationally. Middleton has been on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control Systems Society, USA, and is currently serving as Vice President, Member Activities. He has also been engaged in a wide range of consulting activities ranging from Automated Agriculture to Rolling Mills, Radio Telescope Control and Variable Speed Drives. He is currently Director of the ARC Centre for Complex Dynamic Systems and Control which is a multimillion dollar research centre at The University of Newcastle which covers both theoretical research in systems and control as well as applied work in collaboration with BHP-Billiton and Matrikon on Mining, Process Control and Software Development.
Professor Middleton is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of Engineers Australia.
2003 - Emeritus Professor Henry D'Assumpcao AO FTSE FIEAust CPEng
2002 - Professor Brian Anderson
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Brian Anderson in Parkes ACT on Saturday 29 June 2002.
Professor Brian Anderson, Director of the Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering, the Australian National University is the winner of the prestigious 2001 M A Sargent Medal awarded by the Electrical College.
His other current appointments include Director, Cochlear Limited (since 1995), the world's major supplier of cochlear implants; Consultant, Bandspeed Inc (since 2000) and a Member, Board of the Australian Research Council (since 2001). From 1998 to May 2002, Professor Anderson held the position of President, the Australian Academy of Science and also for that period was a Member of the Prime Minister's Science Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC).
Professor Anderson is a native of Sydney, Australia. He took his undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Sydney and his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, USA.
He worked in industry in the United States and at Stanford University before serving as Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Newcastle from 1967 through 1981. At that time, he took up a post as Professor and Head of the Department of Systems Engineering at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has held many visiting appointments in the United States, Europe and Asia, including the University of California, (Berkeley) Stanford University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, University Catholique de Louvain, (Brussels, Belgium) and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Professor Anderson is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. In 1989, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, London. He holds honorary doctorates of the University Catholique de Louvain in Belgium; the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich; the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and New South Wales and Harbin Institute of Technology, China. This year he received the honour of Foreign Associate, National Academy of Engineering (USA). He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1993. He was President of the International Federation of Automatic Control for the triennium 1990 to 1993.
He has published nine books and over 700 papers.
His current interests include Adaptive Control, Nonlinear Control (including indentification), Robust Control, Hierarchical and Cooperative Control including Dicrete Event Systems.
2000 - Professor Mark Sceats
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Mark Sceats in Sydney on Friday 29 June 2001.
Professor Mark Sceats, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre, is the winner of the prestigious 2000 award M A Sargent Medal awarded by the Electrical College.
Professor Sceats received the BSc Degree (1st Class Honours) and the University Medal in 1969, and a PhD in 1974 from the University of Queensland. He was a Research Associate at the James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, followed by an appointment in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute of Optics. He was awarded the prestigious Alfred P Sloan Foundation Fellowship for his work on solid state exciton dynamics. He returned to Australia in 1981 to work in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, and initiated activities, which have led to the formation of the Centres, which he now leads. His role in establishing these activities was recognised through the award of Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering and Companion of the Institution of Engineers Australia. He was awarded the position of Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney in 1998. He is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU, a Fellow of the Royal Australasian Chemical Institute, Director of the University of Sydney's Optical Fibre Technology Centre, Executive Director of Australian Photonics Pty Ltd, Director and CTO of Redfern Photonics Pty Ltd and Director, Redfern Fibres Pty Ltd.
The Australian Photonics CRC is the largest of the CRCs established to date. It has over 230 members associated with its twenty-eight participants, and coordinates over 90% of Australia's research and development in optical fibre and photonic technology in a joint venture between Australia's major universities and industry. Professor Sceats has provided the leadership to establish Australia's reputation as a world leader in research and development in this field, through his encouragement of excellence and relevance. The CRC has become a unique institution, which encompasses activities from high-risk, high-reward basic research to commercialisation of its R&D outcomes, while developing an innovative education and training program using multimedia resources it has developed in-house. It has attracted worldwide interest as a model for innovation.
Over the past four years, ten companies have been established through the CRC. Australian Photonics Pty Ltd is the technology marketing company, which is wholly owned by the CRC participants and which has been given the brief to licence technology developed in the CRC. Indx Pty Ltd (now JDS Uniphase Fibre Components) has been in operation for over four years, successfully manufacturing and marketing products using CRC technology, in particular, photonic components for telecommunications. The latest spin-off companies in the Redfern Photonics group, include Redfern Fibres Pty Ltd, established in February, 1998 to manufacture and market special purpose optical fibres and fibre products. Other companies in the Redfern Photonics Pty Ltd group of companies include Redfern Integrated Optics, Redfern Optical Components, Redfern Broadband Networks, Redfern Polymer Optics and Redfern Interlink.
In December, 1999, the establishment of a joint venture, Jiangsu Fasten Photonics was announced. This new company, in which Redfern Photonics is a minority stakeholder is setting up a factory to manufacture optical fibre for the Chinese telecommunications market, utilising technology and expertise transferred to the company from Australian Photonics.
The CRC won renewal funding in 1999 for a further 7 years, bringing in an additional university participant, RMIT and TAFE, as well as an additional eight industry participants and DSTO. It has also been successful in winning $1.5M Science Lectureship Initiative funding over 3 three years through DETY A. It has also won the CRC Association's Award for Commercialisation and Utilisation of Research and the BHERT Award for Outstanding Achievement in Collaborative R&D involving a CRC in 2000.
In 1995, Professor Sceats led a partnership with government, industry and academia which conducted a foresighting project on the science and technology needs of Australia's emerging broadband communications network, as part of the Australian Science and Technology Council's program to determine the nation's future needs in the 21st Century. He was Founding Chair of the Cooperative Research Centres Association Inc which brings together all the nation's 65 CRCs into one peak body, and which he initiated; he was an ex officio Member of the Cooperative Research Centres Committee which advises the Commonwealth Government on the CRC Program; and a Member of the Microelectronics Sub Committee of the Information Industry Advisory Board of the NSW Government. In February, 2000 Professor Sceats participated in the Innovation Summit and was a member of the Industry Innovation Working Group.
1999 - Professor Michael Miller FIEAust CPEng
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Michael Miller in Adelaide on Friday 2 June 2000.
Professor Michael Miller of the Institute for Telecommunications Research at the University of SA has won the prestigious 1999 MA Sargent Medal awarded by the Electrical College. The medal is presented to the most outstanding Australian Electrical Engineer and is the IEAust's most coveted electrical engineering prize. Selection of the winner is made on the basis of his or her contribution to electrical engineering science, innovation, leadership and management. Mike is one of Australia's foremost authorities in advanced satellite communications systems and error control coding.
Mike graduated with Honours in Electrical Engineering from the University of Adelaide in 1961. He worked for the PMG Department (now Telstra) until joining the School of Electronic Engineering at the SA Institute of Technology (now the University of SA) in 1965. He was awarded a Master of Science (Engineering) Degree from Queen's University in Canada in 1973 and a Doctorate from the University of Hawaii in 1982. Mike was the IEAust's Australian Professional Engineer of the Year in 1995 and won the lEE Sir Lionel Hooke Award in 1998.
In 1985 Mike established the Digital Communications Group at the SA Institute of Technology as a focus for research and postgraduate studies in the applications of error-control coding, signal processing and encryption to satellite and radio systems and to digital telecommunications networks. In 1992 the group received Australian Space Board funding and became the Institute for Telecommunications Research. With over eighty research staff and postgraduate students, the ITR is now the largest telecommunications research group in any Australian university. It provides research, development, education and consultancy services in the field of terminals, network infrastructure and services for wireless and satellite information networks.
One of the ITR's major activities is as the major partner in the Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems, formed in 1998 in partnership with the CSIRO, DSTO, four other universities and four companies. The CRC's focus is currently on the design and construction of FedSat, a research microsatellite due to be launched from Japan in late 2001. It is the first research built in Australia for several decades, and will enable ITR researchers to validate some new communications research ideas by experimental trials. Mike says FedSat is "basically a flying lab to test out CRC research ideas". "It can be viewed as a piece of test equipment in orbit to demonstrate that Australia is capable of building space-qualified equipment, and to enable CRC researchers to validate by experimental trials, some new research ideas (including the delivery of Internet services to remote regions)".
When hearing of his selection for the MA Sargent Medal, Mike said "it is wonderful to receive recognition from our electrical engineering colleagues, especially in the final year of my working life".
1998 - John Richard (Rick) Gumley FIEAust CPEng
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Rick Gumley in Hobart on Friday 25 June 1999. Rick commenced his career in 1949 as a Technician in Training with the Postmaster General's Department in Hobart. He served in technical positions until he was appointed as an Engineer within the Department in 1961. In 1970 he moved to the Hydro Electric Commission as Senior Communications Engineer and moved to the private sector in 1979 where he established, and was Executive Chairman of, multiple companies which eventually became the Global Lightning Technologies group. In 1997 the company was sold to Erico Lightning Technologies and Rick was employed as the Chief Research Engineer until his retirement earlier this year.
During his career Rick has been responsible for fourteen patent and provisional patent applications. Engineering products and services based on Rick's innovation have grossed approximately $100 million in sales in the period 1984 to 1998. Some 40% of this amount were in export sales. He has been active within national and international lightning protection bodies.
He is a member of the Standards Australia Committee EL24 on lightning protection and a member of the National Fire Prevention Association USA, Standards Committee 781 on Lightning Protection. He has also served on several IEC Technical Committees where he has been appointed in his own right as a technical expert rather than as a country representative.
Prior to his being awarded the Sargent Medal, Rick was awarded the lEE Jack Finlay Award 1998 for his significant contribution to the national welfare in the manufacturing area. He also won the Institution of Engineers Tasmanian Divisional Award of Merit 1989 for his work in developing and installing equipment for lightning and surge protection in Australia and overseas and the 1973 Electrical Engineering prize for the best electrical engineering paper that year published by the Institution.
1997 - Professor John Hullett BE Hons PhD
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor John Hullett in Perth on Monday 27 July 1998 Professor John Hullett was born in Perth WA in 1942. He graduated from the University of Western Australia with a First Class Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering and gained a PhD from the same University in 1969. Professor Hullett has published over 100 papers in international literature. He has received several national and international awards including the IEEE Communications Society Award (1980) and the Australian Telecommunications Users Group Charles Todd Medal for Excellence in Telecommunications (1986).
From 1969-1972 John Hullett worked at the Telecommunications Research Laboratories at Clayton, Victoria, where he became the Divisional Engineer of the Data Systems Division. Returning to the University of WA in 1972, he was appointed Lecturer, Senior Lecturer (1975), and Associate Professor (1982). On secondment from the University he was Technical Director of QPSX Communications from 1982 to 1990. He was also Joint Managing Director and Executive Director at QPSX from 1988 to 1990. In 1990 Professor Hullett returned to his appointment at UWA. In 1992 he was appointed Foundation Professor of Telecommunications at the Australian Telecommunications Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. He was appointed to his present position as Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1996.
Professor Hullett has made significant contributions in many areas associated with telecommunications systems, most notably in Optical Fibres. He is co-inventor of split screen conference TV and was responsible for Australia's first digital TV transmissions. With coresearchers he was first to demonstrate the use of feedback in optical fibre receivers and to develop new methods of characterising optical fibre loss signatures leading to the use of 1.3um and 1.55um fibre cable.
Of major significance was his invention, with his gifted honours student Robert Newman, of the Distributed Queuing Protocol that led to the setting up of QPSX Communications. The work at QPSX led to the adoption of the protocol as an international standard for metropolitan area networks, and to technology that is now licensed and in use in 18 countries world-wide. John is the joint holder of five major patents including the Queued Packet Switching Exchange Protocol.
1996 - Ms Else Shepherd
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Else Shepherd in Brisbane on Friday 9 May 1997.
Else Shepherd was born in Cape Town South Africa in 1944. She graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Engineering Honours in Electrical Engineering in 1965.
In the late 1960's she was an Operations Research Engineer with the Sugar Research Institute in Mackay. Although the Sugar Industry is now a modern and thriving industry, in the 60's it was conservative and slow to change. Professional engineers were not readily accepted and as a result had to overcome considerable prejudice. Mrs Shepherd was a pioneer in this regard, being both a professional engineer introducing new technologies and the first female in the industry.
In 1986 Mrs Shepherd was a founder of Mosaic Electronics, a Brisbane Company which specialises in design, development and manufacture of communications products using innovative technology. The core design tools used by company are digital signal processing techniques applied in the areas of data and voice communications and encryption, and image processing techniques applied to the processing of 3-D visualisations for industrial measurements.
Mosaic Electronics is a growing, dynamic, Australian engineering company whose success is largely due to the drive and management style of Mrs Shepherd and her co-director. The staff is extremely loyal and praise the directors for their enthusiasm and courage, their vision and their constant attention to the professional development and human issues involved in employment. Throughout her engineering career, Mrs Shepherd has made a continuing and significant contribution to engineering education through the establishment of new courses, teaching both at technical colleges and at university, and through membership of University committees.
Since moving to Brisbane in 1984 she has lectured at the Queensland Institute of Technology, where she was also involved in the initial implementation of the Women for Engineering Program.
Since then she lectured Griffith University and QUT and now lectures part time at the University of Queensland. Latterly her area of interest has been in engineering management training. Mrs Shepherd has been a member of the Board of SEQEB, the Queensland Interim Information Industry Board, and an invited industry member of the Board of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Queensland.
Mrs Shepherd is currently Chairman of Powerlink Queensland, Director of NEMMCO and Executive Director of Mosaic Information Technology.
1995 - Professor Rodney Tucker
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Rodney Tucker in Melbourne on 21 June 1996. Rodney Tucker is Coordinator of the University of Melbourne's Telecommunications Research Group and Director of the Melbourne Division of the Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre. He has held positions at the University of Queensland, the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, Plessey (Research), and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He joined the University of Melbourne in 1990.
Professor Tucker leads a group of researchers at the University of Melbourne, working in new technologies for broadband optical fibre telecommunications. His group is linked closely to industry and undertakes work ranging from long-term basic research to shorter-term applied research and prototype development. He has published more than 100 research papers and book chapters in the areas of microwaves and photonics. He holds several patents.
Professor Tucker is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust). Professor Tucker has received BE and PhD degrees, from the University of Melbourne. In 1975 he received the Harkness Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund of New York.
Professor Tucker has received international recognition for his research and education work in the field of semiconductor lasers and optical fibre communications.
1994 - Professor Martin Green
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Martin Green in Sydney in 1995 Professor Martin Andrew Green is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director, Centre for Photovoltaic Devices and Systems, at the University of New South Wales. He has had a distinguished career in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan and the USA. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, the Australian Academy of Science and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (US).
Professor Green's awards are numerous and include being the only non-US citizen to receive the IEEE William Cherry Award for "outstanding contributions to photovoltaic science and technology". His most recent awards include the 1992 CSIRO External Medal and the 1994 Clunies Ross National Science Award. He has authored and co-authored numerous books and more than 150 referenced publications. He holds several patents for photovoltaic devices.
Professor Green is the inventor of the most successful commercial photovoltaic technology in the world and is the Director of the research group that has the world record for silicon cell efficiency.
1993 - W John Edwards
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to W John EDWARDS in Newcastle on Thursday 16 June 1994.
W John Edwards was born in Sydney, Australia in 1942. He obtained a BSc, BE and MengSc from the University of Sydney. From 1968 to 1971 he was Senior Research Engineer at the Industrial Control Group, Imperial College, London where he helped to achieve major theoretical innovations in the automation of tandem cold rolling mills. From 1972 to 1982 John Edwards was Senior Research Engineer in the Research and Technology Centre of John Lysaght (Australia) Ltd. There he had a multidisciplinary group pursuing initiatives in a wide range of areas. Of particular note was pioneering work in software engineering for sophisticated process control systems which has been subsequently marketed internationally.
In 1981 John Edwards helped establish Industrial Automation Services Pty Ltd which has grown into an export oriented company earning ninety percent of its income from the sale of Australian developed technology and turnkey automation services for the metal rolling industry, and the provision of consulting and training services throughout the world.
John received the Medal for very significant contributions to Electrical Engineering Science and Technology and for the leadership and management of an internationally successful organisation which in 1992 was recognised as the Australian Small Business of the Year.
1992 - Professor W. Derek Humpage
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor W. Derek Humpage in Perth on 12 August 1993.
Prof. Humpage was born in England in 1934. He is internationally known for his extensive research over a 30 year period in integrated power network systems. Professor Humpage graduated with first class Honours in Electrical Engineering in 1959 from the University of Durham from which University he later gained his PhD. He has published over 100 papers in the international literature together with several books. He has received several national awards including joint awards with his colleague Dr Tam Nguyen. In recognition of his distinction in research, he was awarded a DSc in 1987.
From 1962-1974, Prof. Humpage was with the Faculty of Technology of the University of Manchester. Since 1974 he has been Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Western Australia. In the Institution of Engineers, Australia, Prof Humpage was Chairman of the National Committee of Control and Computer Systems for three successive 2-year terms from 1977-1983. He was Chairman of the College of Electrical Engineers for two successive 2-year terms in the period 1983-1987 and a member of the Council of the Institution from 1982-1987. In recognition of outstanding service to the profession of engineering in Australia, Prof. Humpage was elected Honorary Fellow of lFAust in 1988.
The Award to Prof Humpage of the Sargent medal is in recognition of his long-standing eminence and leadership and his highly significant and widely acknowledged contribution to electrical engineering.
1991 - Dr John Ness
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Dr John Ness in Brisbane on Wednesday 13 May 1992 John Ness graduated from the University of Queensland in 1970 with an Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering and completed a PhD in 1977 and a BA in 1981 from the same University.
From 1977 to 1981, he worked at AWA (Sydney) with the Interscan Team, developing the Australian version of the Microwave Landing System (MLS) for aircraft. In 1981, he returned to Queensland to take up an Engineering appointment with the Microwave Technology Developed Centre established by the Australian Government and the University of Queensland to undertake industrial research and development.
As Chief Engineer of the Centre he was responsible for technical development but this role broadened to include planning, marketing and financial matters as the Centre developed. In 1987, all the staff of the Centre left the University to establish MITEC Ltd, a commercial company principally operating in the Microwave sector of the Telecommunications market.
Since 1987, he has been the Managing Director of MITEC which has now grown to be the dominant microwave company in Australia. MITEC has also been active in supporting Engineering education and work experience for students both here in Australia and from overseas.
John Ness is a Fellow of the IREE. John received the Medal for a highly significant contribution through technical innovation to the science and practice of electrical engineering.
1990 - Professor Graham Goodwin
The MA Sargent Medal was presented to Professor Graham Goodwin in Newcastle in June 1991 Graham C. Goodwin was born in Broken Hill, Australia in 1945. He obtained a B.Sc (Physics), B.E. (Electrical Engineering), and PhD from the University of New South Wales. From 1970 until 1974 he was a lecturer in the Department of Computing and Control, Imperial College, London.
Since 1974 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Newcastle, Australia. He is the co-author of four books: Control Theory, Oliver and Boyd (1970), Dynamic System Identification, Academic Press (1977), Adaptive Filtering, Prediction and Control, Prentice Hall (1984), and Digital Control and Estimation, Prentice Hall (1989).
Graham Goodwin is the recipient of several international prizes including a best paper award by IEEE - Trans. Automatic Control, and best engineering text book award from the International Federation of Automatic Control. He is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Centre for Industrial Control Science at the University of Newcastle. Graham Goodwin is a Fellow of the IEAust, of IEEE, and of the Australian Academy of Technology, Science and Engineering.
Graham received the Medal for his exceptional and sustained management and leadership in the fields of training and research in Electrical Engineering.
1989 - Mr Stuart G. Lister
The inaugural medal was awarded to Mr Stuart lister, Assistant General Manager (Generation),Queensland Electricity Commission in Brisbane on Tuesday 31 July 1990.
Mr Stuart Gerald Lister joined the electrical industry as an apprentice electrician with Brisbane City Council in 1945 and gained a Diploma in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (University of Queensland) by part time study in 1948. He became a Fellow of The Institution of Engineers, Australia in 1972. He spent several years with South Burnett Electricity Board and at New Farm and Tennyson Power Stations, before taking up an appointment in 1955 with Townsville Regional Electricity Board transferring to the Northern Electric Authority on its formation in 1964.
He was appointed Southern Electrical Authority Project Engineer at Gladstone in 1973.1ater becoming Chief Engineer Generation Development and with industry reorganisation in 1977 retained the same position with the Queensland Electricity Generating Board. Mr Lister became Manager Tarong Project In 1978 and QEC Assistant General Manager Generation in 1987.
His responsibilities include:
- Operation and Maintenance of Generation Plant
- Generation Plant Design and Construction
- Engineering/Scientific Support Services
- Administering Generation Contracts
Stuart received the Medal for his exceptional and sustained management and leadership in the field of Electrical Engineering.
