Members of Council
President
Prof Pat Quilty
Professor Patrick Quilty was Chief Scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division and now Honorary Research Professor at the University of Tasmania with experience in academia, industry and federal government. He first visited Antarctica (1965/66) with the University of Wisconsin and has been on many tourist ventures. He participated in many marine science programs and has published over 200 scientific papers. Honours include Membership of the Order of Australia (AM), Distinguished Alumnus from the University of Tasmania, US Antarctic Services Medal, Royal Society of Tasmania Medal, Distinguished Lecturer (Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia) and speaker in the North American Speaker Series (1998/99). He has five species, a range of nunataks and a bay named in his honour. He is a patron of the University of Western Australia Geoscience Foundation.
Vice President
Mr Jim Reid
Immediate Past President
Mr Peter Stevenson
Peter Stevenson qualified from Birmingham University in 1954 in Geology with emphasis on Soil Mechanics and Engineering Geophysics. Worked in UK on Groundwater and building material deposits. Groundwater and Mineral deposit work followed in North Africa, South Africa, South West Africa and Zambia, and then in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Qatar. A higher degree in Groundwater Hydrology, a period in the University of London on Diamonds, and then emigration to the Tasmanian Geological Survey as Senior Engineering Geologist, groundwater and slope stability work. Retired in 1988, much involved with U3A Hobart and Clarence, Real Tennis and indifferently playing the Celtic Harp.
Honorary Secretary
Mr Tony Culberg
Tony was born in Sydney, NSW, and completed a Bachelor of Commerce at UNSW and, after moving to Tasmania in 1974, a Diploma of Education at UTas. He then taught in both High Schools and at TAFE until being declared redundant in 1990.
He first visited Tasmania in 1966, as a bushwalker on the Overland Track and then to Frenchman’s Cap. Five years later he attended a national caving conference in Hobart, followed by two weeks of caving at Exit Cave, Mt Anne and Mole Creek.
Since 1990 he has both built up a tax practice and sold most of it so he could semi-retire. Tony has been irregularly heard on ABC Radio in Tasmania, commenting on tax issues and taking talkback sessions, since 1989.
He moved to Tasmania to pursue his recreation of caving, as Tasmania has the best accessible caves in Australia. He has no particular scientific training, other than that acquired while caving. In the early 1990s he ran a tourism venture, taking adventurous souls into, first, Exit Cave and later Mystery Creek Cave, both located south of the Ida Bay Railway.
For some years he audited the books of the Royal Society of Tasmania and last year, 2009, stepped up to the more active role of Secretary.
Honorary Treasurer
Dr Albert Goede
Albert was born in The Netherlands in 1935. In 1951 the family migrated to Tasmania. He was forced to leave school and served an apprenticeship as a compositor with Mercury Press in Hobart. In 1959 he enrolled at the University of Tasmania as a part-time science student and completed his BSc in 1962 majoring in Geology and Geography. The following year he became the first science student at UTAS to do honours in Geomorphology. This was followed by a year as a research student at ANU.
In 1965 he returned to the University of Tasmania after being appointed to a lectureship in Geography and remained there until his retirement in 1997. His research focused on the hydrology of rivers and caves, the evolution of coastal landforms in Victoria and the Bass Strait Islands and the use of trace element and stable isotope variations in stalagmites as a source of information on past climate change. His research on caves also included a study of the timing of the extinction of the megafauna in Tasmania and the ice age occupation of a cave in the Florentine Valley by Tasmanian Aborigines.
In retirement he maintains an active interest in a diverse range of scientific topics including climate change. He has given courses at U3A Clarence and Hobart since the year 2000 and has been Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Society of Tasmania since the year 2002. His favourite pastimes are bushwalking, wildflower photography and gardening.
Councillor
Mr Anthony Bill
Anthony Bill spent his childhood on the outskirts of Bendigo surrounded by the bush and the extensive industrial relics of the gold-mining era. After obtaining a degree in chemical engineering from Monash University, he worked in the pulp and paper industry and in metal refining in range of operational, engineering, and research roles commissioning and optimising industrial processing plants. After a less than successful period as a paper-machine process engineer, Anthony is now completing a PhD in statistics and education, jointly funded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and a USA based software manufacturer. He has published several papers, presented at conferences both locally and overseas, and has recently been invited as a guest speaker for a key international statistics conference in 2010.
Anthony considers himself a Tasmanian by choice and a scientist by inclination. He enjoys sailing and the great Tasmanian outdoors and is bewildered by why anyone would choose to live anywhere else. His other current research interest is a study of the Australian magpie in urban environments.
Assistant Treasurer
Mr Harman Mulder
Harman was born in Java during World War 2. His family was interned by the Japanese until the end of the war when they returned to Holland. His father had, however, died during the invasion. In 1950 the family emigrated to Australia and settled in Kingston, south of Hobart. Harman’s high school education was at Hobart High, followed by one year at Amsterdam University. In 1968 he completed, as a part-time student, a BA at UTAS and followed this with other courses at Monash University, Melbourne College of Divinity and Chisholm. Harman has worked as a Child Welfare Officer in Hobart and as a psychologist with the Australian Defence Forces, first in Tasmania and Victoria, then Queensland, then again in Victoria as Senior Psychologist. He later became the National Personnel Manager for H.C. Sleigh in Melbourne before returning to welfare as Assistant Director of Melbourne Family Care and concurrently as Manager of Dandenong Family Care. Following private practice Harman returned to Hobart in 2002.
Councillor
Mr Graeme Rayner
Councillor
Mr Warren Boyles
Warren grew up in Tasmania and spent 9 years in the RAN. On leaving the Navy he completed BSc and Dip Ed at UTAS. He was a teacher for a number of years, then operated an electrical contracting business and a shipyard. Warren is now CEO 40°South Pty Ltd. The state’s largest book publisher and editor and publisher of Tasmania 40°SOUTH.
Councillor
Mrs Mary Koolhof
Mary Koolhof teaches Psychology and English at Claremont College, where she is also a literacy coordinator. She has a strong background in curriculum development and design and is a recipient of several Goethe-Institut scholarships to study in Germany, as well as an inaugural awardee of a Commonwealth Endeavour Language Teacher Fellowship. Her poem Welche Sprache spricht Europa? was selected for an exhibition by the Junge Akademie in Berlin, 2004. As Senior Education Officer she managed a number of successful projects for the Department of Education including Teachers Experiencing the Antarctic, the Antarctic and Marine Science Prize, the Polar Pathways Student Prize and the KidzEd extension program for gifted students. Mary sat on the Australian International Polar Year Education, Outreach and Communication Committee. She is a Queen’s Guide who has served Girl Guides Tasmania as State Membership Adviser and Friends of World Centres Liaison. In her spare time she enjoys teaching German at Adult Education.
Honorary Editor
Dr Margaret Davies
Margaret Davies was educated at the University of Tasmania, the ANU and the University of Adelaide from where she retired in 2002 after an academic career at that institution of 30 years. Her research focused on the taxonomy and systematics of the Australopapuan frog fauna with an interest in osteology. She has discovered and named 34 species of frog during that research career and has published 118 papers, books and edited works. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia, she served as Secretary, Editor (for 13 years), Vice-President, President and Minute Secretary before returning to Tasmania where she became Honorary Editor of the Royal Society of Tasmania, a position she claims is to keep the brain active.
Honorary Librarian
Mr Andrew Parsons
Andrew succeeded Graeme Rayner as Senior Librarian (Physical Collections) at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) Library in late February 2010. Prior to this succession, Andrew worked in the Resources & Access (R&A) section of UTAS Library for a little over 18 months, for the most part supervising reclassification of UTAS Library’s northern collections from Dewey to Library of Congress. Before his relocation to R&A in mid-2008, Andrew worked at the Australian Maritime College (AMC) Library in Launceston for 12 years, first as Cataloguer then college Librarian. He was actively involved with the integration of the AMC and UTAS libraries during 2007, transferring to UTAS Library when amalgamation of the two libraries became official in January 2008.
Councillor
Anita Hansen
Anita was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and moved to Australia in 1959.Anita has a Bachelor of Fine Art and Grad Diploma in Plant and Wildlife Illustration, and worked as a scientific illustrator/designer before completing a research based Master of Fine Art, University of Tasmania in 2007 (nineteenth century orchid illustrations by Tasmanian artist William Archer (1820-1874)). She is currently a PhD student with the School of Art, University of Tasmania, the research is based on the nineteenth century natural history art (original art, prints and illustrated books) held by the major state institutions, and the reasoning behind the collection of this type of material. It is a joint project with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, as was the Master’s degree.