ALUMNI UPDATES

My Fulbright year at Stanford University in 1977-78 was one of the most important of my life. I was supposed to attend classes run by Professor Donald Davie, though I quickly chose instead to audit Professor Van A. Harvey's graduate seminar on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Theology.

Over the year I read a great deal of German idealist philosophy and German theology. I would sit in my apartment and read Hegel in the morning, and Barth in the afternoon. Every couple of days I would cycle to the campus and come back with another heavy pile of books. What was most important to me about my Fulbright year is that I didn't have to do any courses or write any papers. I spent the year in solitude reading and thinking. After that year, I was able to come up with an original topic for my doctoral dissertation and to write the dissertation quickly. As it happens, much of my academic work has become centered on the sort of philosophy and theology that I read in 1977-78.

Also in my Fulbright year I discovered, mostly by chance, some of the poets whose work has meant a great deal to me over the years. I would not have encountered the range and depth of South American poetry had I not spent time in California. But, once again, it was the silence and solitude that was of overwhelming importance to me. In that year I came to realise who I was and what I wanted to do; and I would have been able to avoid that complex realisation had I been required to do courses, write essays, and get a degree.

My primary field of research is the study chemical reactions at the high pressure and temperature found at the bottom of the Earth’s ocean and in deeper parts of the Earth’s interior. Projects include measuring the solubility of carbon dioxide in a range of silicate melts from 0.1 to 20 GPa (1 to 200,000 atm.) and measuring melting reactions in the interior of Mars and the Earth’s lower crust and upper mantle. We use non-ideal mixing thermodynamics of volatile molecular species to calculate oxidation-reduction equilibria in planetary interiors at high pressures and temperatures; and we do experiments to determine the stability of hydrous and carbonated minerals in the Earth’s crust and mantle.

Our most recent project is to study mineral catalyzed, abiotic organic synthesis under conditions found in seafloor hydrothermal systems (Black Smokers) at the Earths mid-ocean ridge system. The first result showed that methanol is formed from hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the presence of the mineral magnetite. We are currently studying reactions of aqueous methanol solutions in the presence of different clay mineral types. The results demonstrate abiotic formation of a wide range of simple and complex compounds, including dimethyl ether and hexamethyl benzene.

Through my Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship to the University of Queensland, I was able to initiate research that formed the basis of my doctoral dissertation investigating links between land clearing and changes to near shore water quality at the reefs around Mackay, Queensland. During my Fulbright, I co-authored a successful Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant that provided continued funding for the project for the following 3 years. It was largely because of this achievement that I was asked to apply for my current position in the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, where I am now a research fellow at both the Australian National University and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences. I continue to address issues regarding land-pollution threats to coral reefs, both in Australia and abroad. I am currently organising an international symposium in Kenya which will bring together researchers and managers to discuss the future of coastal reef systems in a rapidly industrialising world.