Douglas Mawson Chair in Earth Sciences: Professor Alan Collins

The Douglas Mawson Chair in Earth Sciences was established to acknowledge the work of Sir Douglas Mawson, the former Chair of Geology between 1921 and 1952 and highly esteemed Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Adelaide until his retirement in 1952.  It was established in 1983 as a result of seven of Australia’s major resource-based companies entered into a partnership with the University of Adelaide, providing funds for the establishment of a new professorship in Geology which sat within the newly formed department of Geology and Geophysics.  The most recent Mawson Chair was Professor Richard Hillis who relinquished the chair when he moved to lead the Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre in 2010.  Alan is very keen to reinvigorate the chair after such a long absence from the activities of the university.