News Archive

Coral reef expert, Premier's Fellow and research leader at The University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute, Professor Malcolm McCulloch, has been elected to the prestigious Royal Society.

Professor McCulloch is one of 44 new Fellows to join the ranks of the UK and Commonwealth's leading scientists as the Royal Society celebrates its 350 ^th Anniversary.

UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said Professor McCulloch's election to the Society put him alongside the leading scientists of his generation.

"Professor McCulloch is a world-class researcher working in a world-class Oceans Institute at our University," Professor Robson said.  "His research is helping people to recognise and confront the impact of climate change - one of the biggest challenges of our time."

The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, and has been at the forefront of enquiry and discovery since its foundation in 1660.  The backbone of the Society is its Fellowship of the most eminent scientists of the day, elected by peer review for life and entitled to use FRS after their name.

Professor McCulloch is a distinguished isotope geochemist who, over many years, has made highly original contributions to our understanding of the Earth and early solar systems.

Over the past decade he has been a trailblazer in developing innovative new indicators of climate change preserved in coral skeletons.  He has demonstrated a direct link between the degradation of the Great Barrier Reef and the build up of human activity in Australia following colonisation, examining the effects of river runoff on inshore reefs, and of climate change and ocean acidification on coral reefs.

A member of the School of Earth and Environment, he is one of two Deputy Directors of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies and in 2009 was responsible for establishing a new node for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies at UWA.  He has received a number of prestigious awards, including Fellowships of the Australian Academy of Science (2004), the Geological Society of Australia (2007), the Geochemical Society (2008) and the American Geophysical Union (2002).  In 2009, he was awarded the Jaeger Medal in Earth Sciences by the Australian Academy of Sciences.

Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society said: "I am delighted to welcome these new Fellows to the Royal Society in what is a hugely important year for us.  These scientists follow in the footsteps of early Fellows such as Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke.  The new Fellows embody the spirit of enquiry, dedicated to ‘the relief of man's estate' on which the Royal Society was founded.  That spirit is as alive today as it was 350 years ago."

Media references

Professor Malcolm McCulloch FRS (School of Earth and Environment)  (+61 8)  6488 1921
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716