OBITUARY

Eric Vance died on 20/03/2019.

Professor Eric Raymond Vance known as Lou to almost all of his friends and colleagues, was born in Ararat in Victoria in 1942.

From his school years at nearby Stawell, Professor Vance showed remarkable capacity for scholastic achievement, sharp insight and unusual inventiveness. He had an early passion for cricket and football and continued to play tennis, golf and bridge throughout his life.

After graduating with a PhD in Physics from Monash University in 1968, Professor Vance held several research positions in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA.

He finally settled with his wife, Jan, and their two children, Julia and Michael, in a position with ANSTO. There he researched Synroc, an artificial mineral for safely locking away various radioactive elements.

Professor Vance’s research embraced many different areas of the physics of materials, and included studies of magnetism in metallic alloys, neutron irradiation effects in diamonds and other minerals, properties of glass ceramics and geopolymers.

Drawing on his knowledge of waste-form technology from his research in Canada, and enthusiastically applying this to the Synroc program, Lou progressed within ANSTO, being promoted to Senior Research Scientist in 1987 and to Chief Research Scientist in 2001.

He was elected a Fellow of the Academy in 2003. In 2007, Lou was awarded the Leverhulme Fellowship to work at Cambridge University in Earth Sciences, and later made a Fellow of Clare Hall. He was also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics, the American Ceramic Society and the Australian Ceramic Society.

Lou was also an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics, a long-time member of the Materials Research Society and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association.

He was author or co-author to almost 400 articles in international journals or conference proceedings. He held editorial and/or advisory board roles for a number of esteemed academic journals.

In 2018, Lou was awarded the prestigious ANSTO CEO Award, jointly with the late Dr Mark Reinhard, for his sustained research contribution. It is a measure of his scientific leadership and achievements within the Synroc program that a commercial scale Synroc processing plant is currently under construction on the ANSTO site.

He leaves behind a legacy in terms of his science but also his attitude and approach to life. Lou died on 7 March 2019.

He is survived by his wife Jan, children Julia and Michael, and four grandchildren.