Person

Cowley, John Maxwell (1923 - 2004)

FAA FRS

Born
18 February 1923
Peterborough, South Australia, Australia
Died
18 May 2004
Arizona, United States of America
Occupation
Physicist

Summary

John Cowley began his career as a research assistant with CSIRO's Section of Chemical Physics. He progressed through the ranks and was promoted to Chief Research Officer and Head of Crystallography. In 1962 he moved to the University of Melbourne as Professor of Physics, then to the Arizona State University in 1969 where he remained until his retirement in 1994. During this time, Cowley was appointed Director of the Facility for High Resolution Electron Microscopy in 1983 and Regents Professor in 1988. The latter being a rare honour which is only awarded to those who have demonstrated exceptional scholarship and achievements.

Details

Cowley pioneered work on high-resolution electron diffraction and structure analysis. His achievements were many and included the development of single-crystal structure analysis, the theory of direct imaging of atomic crystal structures and defects, and the interpretation and use of Fourier images. Cowley received numerous awards for his work (see Chronology section) throughout his 44 years of research. Even very early in his career he was making a name for himself, winning the Edgeworth David Medal and Research Medal of the Royal Societies of New South Wales and Victoria respectively.

Chronology

1945
Education - Completed a Masters Degree (MSc). Location: University of Adelaide, South Australia
1949
Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) completed. Location: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
1957
Education - Doctorate of Science (DSc) received. Location: University of Adelaide, South Australia
1961 -
Career position - Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA)
1962 -
Career position - Chamber of Manufacturers' Professor of Physics at the University of Melbourne
1969
Career position - Galvin Professor of Physics. Location: Arizona State University, USA
1971 - 1980
Career position - Co-editor of Acta Crystallography
1976
Award - Bertram Eugene Warren Award received. Location: USA
1979
Award - Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
1983
Career position - Director of the Facility for High Resolution Electron Microscopy. Location: Arizona State University, USA
1984
Award - Fellow of the American Physical Society. Location: USA
1987
Award - Joint inaugural winner of the International Union of Chrystallography's Ewald Prize
1987 - 1990
Career position - Chairman of the Commission on Electron Diffraction of the International Union of Crystallography
1988
Career position - Regents Professorship appointment. Location: Arizona State University, USA
1994
Life event - Retired. Location: Arizona State University

Related Awards

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Journal Articles

Resources

Resource Sections

See also

McCarthy, G.J.

EOAS ID: biogs/P000331b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 February (Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#kooyang
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P000331b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260