Graham Farquhar wins the 2015 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science
CoETP Chief Investigator Professor Graham Farquhar has been awarded this year’s Prime Minister’s Prize for his innovative work on plant function, photosynthesis and the understanding of the impacts of climate change on crops.
The Prime Minister’s Prize is one of the most prestigious recognitions for a scientist in Australia. Professor Graham Farquar, a Chief Investigator of the Australian research Council Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP), will receive the prize tonight in a ceremony at Parliament House.
“On behalf of myself and his colleagues in the Centre, I would like to congratulate Graham for his outstanding research achievements which have led to the prestigious award,” said Professor Murray Badger, Director of the Centre.
“His work has enabled development of crop varieties that are better equipped to cope with water limitation and these achievements are the leading examples of translational photosynthesis outcomes in the world today,” he said.
Professor Graham Farquhar is an outstanding plant scientist whose innovative work has had far reaching impact on our understanding of plant function in a changing world. He joined ANU as a research fellow in the Research School of Biological Sciences in 1976. Combining mathematical rigour and biological insight, his highly cited research has been applied at vastly different scales, from how plants partition their resources between water use and photosynthesis to global interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere.
His work has enabled development of crop varieties that are better equipped to cope with changing environmental conditions, particularly those associated with drought.
Professor Farquhar co-leads Program 4, at the ARC CoETP, where he focuses on modelling and measurement which aims to scale photosynthesis from leaf function to crop growth and yield. His research focuses on integrating mechanistic models of leaf photosynthesis with commonly used crop growth models.
Click here to watch an ANU Media video on Graham’s Farquhar work video and the ANU Media Release
Click here for more information about Professor Graham Farquhar
Feeding the world and asking where the wind went, an excellent article by Science in Public