Finkel named Victorian of the Year
Australia's chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel said his new status as Victorian of the Year has placed him in the company of sporting figures, singers and entertainers, and “I’m proud to be in their company."
AUSTRALIA’S chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel said his new status as Victorian of the Year has placed him in the company of sporting figures, singers and entertainers, and “I’m proud to be in their company.”
Finkel – a neuroscientist, engineer, entrepreneur and philanthropist – foreshadowed that in his new role he would continue advocating the opportunities provided by science, technology and innovation, as he has been doing as chief scientist.
“It’s the highest award in Victoria, the state in which I very happily choose to live,” the electrical engineer, Mount Scopus College old boy and St Kilda Synagogue congregant, who has served as chancellor of Monash University, told The AJN.
Noting that “we do Shabbos every week at home”, Finkel reflected that his Judaism is “more cultural” than “theistic”.
The son of Polish-born Holocaust survivors – his mother migrated to Australia just before World War II and his father after the war – Finkel praised Victoria as “such a welcoming place for refugees over the years”.
His parents, “like so many of their friends … worked hard so that we could be put through the best schools, get the best education, so we could have the lifestyles they were denied. Victoria was an easy place to do that and I think it still is an easy place to do that. That’s a great thing that should be acknowledged,” he said.
“My favourite news source is The Economist magazine [which] deemed that Melbourne is the most livable city in the world, and I’m not going to argue with a magazine that I respect more than any other.”
He was recognised with the new post for his advances in science and education during the Victoria Day Council Awards at the Melbourne Town Hall last Friday.
The awards were celebrated with much pageantry on the 165th anniversary of Victoria becoming a separate colony from NSW on July 1, 1851.
The ceremony featured a re-enactment of Victoria’s separation proclamation being read out by a town crier outside the Melbourne Town Hall, complete with a 12-musket salute.
Finkel was announced as Australia’s chief scientist by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in October last year, succeeding Ian Chubb.
PETER KOHN
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