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Obituary,
Dr Robert Hill The Canberra
Times 1 August 1992 |
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'Bright young hope' of science - lost. Australian science lost one of
its bright young hopes last Saturday, July 18, with the unexpected death of
Dr Robert Ian Hill, aged 38. Dr Hill, who was a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow at the ANU's Research
School of Earth Sciences, had already won a considerable reputetion
as an earth scientist. He had 15 publications in top international journals, and more in
press. Four had appeared in the prestigious journals, Science and Nature, and
a fifth is to come in Science - more than most scientists achieve in a
lifetime. Born in Tumut and brought up in his beloved bush, he achieved first
class honours in 1976 in the Geology Department at
the ANU. From there he went to Caltech, finishing his PhD in 1984, and then to
Cambridge, returning to the ANU in April, 1986, as a research fellow in the
new Ore Genesis Studies group at the Research School of Earth Sciences. He won recent acclaim with three colleagues for a new development
which he dubbed "plume tectonics" because it shows how the huge
subterranean upward-pushing "mantle plumes" contribute to the
splitting of the earth's crust, before continental drift. He was an active member of the university, promoting science at all
levels and vetting the ANU's applications for Cooperative Research Centres. As a tribute to his work with graduate students,
the ANU has set up a Robert Hill Memorial Fund for high achievers in the
school. He was also a regular contributor to The Canberra Times, arguing
forcefully on science and higher-education policy, tackling wider economic
issues, and explaining scientific discoveries. He had a dry wit, loved political gossip and was intrigued by the
science and education bureaucracy. His commitment to Australia permeated his work. This was not a cheap
sense of nationalism but a deep and abiding bond with all that was natural,
and with the best of Australia's intellectual life. "The view from Mount Ross isn't spectacular," he began one
story last December. "But like much of outback Australia it has a beauty
of its own, and is somehow also quite restful. "We - Peter Williams from the Bureau of Mineral Resources
and. myself - were there to collect
rock samples for age determinations, and as we ate our lunch we could pick
out the dark green of the occasional kurrajong, and
the eucalypt ribbons along the major watercourses..." One day in 1988 a story called "The Two Realities of our Higher
Education system", complete with a cartoon of the good ship ANU being
besieged by a bunch of pirates, was being sub-edited. "Who's Robert Hill?" called one journalist. "Oh, he's the Liberal Party spokesman on the ACT. Senator Robert
Hill," replied another. So the story was published, attributed to Senator Robert Hill. Both Robert Hills took it in good humour,
the Senator saying he was flattered and only wished he had written it. Dr Hill is survived by his wife, Dr Sally Rigden,
a scientist also at the Research School of Earth Sciences, and by their two
daughters aged six and three. Verona
Burgess' |