A Canberra electrical engineer has received the nation's highest honour in the Queen's Birthday honours list.
Professor Brian Anderson from the Australian National University received the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) award for eminent service to information and communications technology, to engineering and to higher education.
Anderson completed his engineering degree at the University of Sydney before getting his doctorate at Stanford University in the US.
His research interests have focused on circuits, signal processing and control, and currently he is working on distributed control of multiagent systems, sensor network localisation, and econometric modelling.
Anderson said he was delighted and surprised by the honour.
"It was a very big surprise. I've just been minding my own business as a research professor for the past 10 years. My achievements are much less than a Frank Fenner, or Nobel Laureate like Brian Schmidt, so it was a great surprise," he said.
"I am also very very grateful for the ANU as an institution. It provided a framework where I could do lots of different things, pursue my own research agenda and work on other projects such as NICTA and the PM's Science Council. I never did anything by myself. It was always with a great group of people, including students and fellow scientists."
Two other AC recipients had connections to engineering. Computer scientist Professor Michael Fellows was a member of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at Charles Darwin University before taking up a new role at the University of Bergen in Norway earlier this year. He was recognised for his service to higher education.
Tony Beddison from recruitment company Beddison Group received his award for service to the community through charitable organisations, philanthropy and business innovation. In his younger days, he was a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Engineers.
Chemical engineer Peter Duncan received the next highest award, the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to business in petroleum, banking, heavy transport supply, and scientific research organisations. Nick Callinan also received an AO. He studied civil engineering before making a name for himself in venture capitalism for which he received his award.
[Professor Brian Anderson. Photo: ANU]
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