Awarded for Imagination

New Zealand mineral chemist Dr Alan Reid, 77, has won the Ian Wark Medal in acknowledgement for his outstanding contribution to Australia’s prosperity through the advancement of scientific knowledge. One of a number of notable instances in Reid’s career was his invention of the AMCRO solar energy absorber surface, which maximises heat retention in solar panels. Another was his development of the automated mineral analysis system, QEMSCAN. Reid, who also has a mineral named after him – the high-pressure mineral reidite – was born and raised near the volcanoes of Tongariro National Park, where he would set off to investigate the effects of eruptions, and that later he became an alpine guide on the South Island’s Fox Glacier. “Your imagination doesn’t start from nowhere,” Reid says. “It’s opened up by life’s experiences.” For much of his career, Reid worked at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) where he was the director of the CSIRO Institute of Energy and Earth Resources.