Chief Scientist of Australia
Professor Ian Chubb was appointed to the position of Chief Scientist on 19 April 2011 and commenced the role in May 2011.
Prior to his appointment as Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb was Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University from January 2001 to February 2011. He was Vice-Chancellor of Flinders University of South Australia for six years and the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Monash University for two years.
He was Chair of the Higher Education Council (the Commonwealth Government’s peak advisory body on higher education) from September 1990 to December 1994 and was, until mid-1994, the Deputy Chair of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training (the Commonwealth’s peak advisory body on all matters related to the Employment, Education and Training portfolio).
From January 1986 to September 1990, Professor Chubb was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong and an Honorary Professor of Biology. During the period 1978-1985 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in the School of Medicine of Flinders University. Before that he was at Oxford University where, during the period 1971-1977, he was a Wellcome Foundation Scholar, a Junior Research Fellow of St John’s College, and a Royal Society Research Fellow. He spent 1969-1971 as a JF & C Heymans Research Fellow at the University of Ghent, Belgium.
Professor Chubb’s research focussed on the neurosciences and was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Grants Scheme and by various Foundations.
Professor Chubb was President of the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) during 2000 and 2001. Professor Chubb was an elected member, or member, of the Board of the AVCC between 1996 and 2006. He was Chair of the Group of Eight universities during 2003/5.
In 1999 Professor Chubb was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for “service to the development of higher education policy and its implementation at state, national and international levels, as an administrator in the tertiary education sector, and to research particularly in the field of neuroscience”. In 2006 he was made a Companion (AC) in the order for “service to higher education, including research and development policy in the pursuit of advancing the national interest socially, economically, culturally and environmentally, and to the facilitation of a knowledge-based global economy”.
Professor Chubb has been awarded 5 honorary doctorates: a DSc from Flinders University in 2000, A DUniv from the Australian National University in 2011; a DLitt from Charles Darwin University in 2011; a LLD from Monash University in 2012 and a DUniv from the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2014. He was the ACT’s Australian of the Year in 2011.