James May

1994

CITATION

Mr Chancellor, 

Jim May was born in Adelaide in 1934 and completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Metallurgical and Chemical) at the University of Adelaide in 1957 and a Master of Science in Chemical Technology at the University of New. South Wales in 1961. From the staff of South Mine Broken Hill, he moved to the Australian Atomic Energy Commission at Lucas Heights in 1958, where he spent ten years, including periods with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States of America. In 1967 he was appointed Head of the Chemical Engineering Section of the Commission but left in 1968 to become the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Mineral Industries Research Association Ltd. This was to become the pre-eminent organisation of its kind in the world and its head became an adviser to governments throughout the world on research and development management and the strategic management of technological change. He has been a Board member of several Cooperative Research Centres including the Centre for Mining Technology and Equipment and heavily involved with the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre and other departments of the university to develop research project proposals and market them to industry. He has been an official Visitor under the CRC Scheme and a Director of the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation, an advisory committee member for many university departments throughout Australia and various divisions of CSIRO and a member of the Australian Research Council committee that reviewed Key Centre and Special Research Centre programs in 1991. He has a close association with the Sir James Foots School of Mineral Resources at The University of Queensland.

In 1992 he was awarded the highest honour that can be conveyed by the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Institute Medal, and in the same year he received the Australian Museum Prize for industry. In 1993 the University of South Australia recognised his many services by awarding him the Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University, and in June of this year he retired as Chief Executive Officer of AMIRA after twenty-six years. 

Mr Chancellor, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the mineral industry and to the University, I present to you James Richard May, Bachelor of Engineering of the University of Adelaide, Master of Science of the University of New South Wales, Honorary Doctor of the University of South Australia, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, for the conferral of the awl;lrd of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa, to which he has been admitted by the Senate of the University. 

Awards

Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa
1994