We thank Dr Max Richards for his generous scholarship donation

We would like to thank and publicly acknowledge Dr Max Richards, who has made a very generous donation to our CSIRO Alumni scholarship fund.

The CSIRO Alumni Scholarship in Physics aims to connect the brightest postgraduate physicists or mathematicians to a leading research centre overseas or in Australia.

Dr Richards chose to donate to our CSIRO Alumni scholarship as he explained, “The Overseas Studentship I received from CSIRO opened up the world for me, and I am pleased to give something back.”

He joined CSIRO in 1964, in a Mineragraphic section run by Arthur Gaskin. He published a couple of research papers and was awarded the scholarship, which took him to Stanford University in California Whilst working there, he met graduate students from several countries, including some working in industry. By June 1965, he had joined a Canadian mining company in their exploration division. One of the conditions of the scholarship was that he had to return to Australia after 3 years, so he came back and pursued a career in the mining industry as an explorer.

Dr Richards reflects, “The 3 years experience in Canada established a wonderful connection between research and industry, which defined the rest of my career.”

Dr Richards later went on to become a member of the CSIRO Board.

Learn more about the History of Australian geoscience, in this interview of Dr Max Richards, by Fiona Rothchilds as part of the joint oral history project conducted by the National Library of Australia and Geoscience Australia.