​Defence has announced the appointment of Professor Tanya Monro as the new Chief Defence Scientist, effective March 2019.

Professor Monro is a highly decorated scientist who joins DST from the University of South Australia where she is currently Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation and Pro Vice Chancellor Health Sciences. She has a distinguished record in optics and photonics, and has been associated with DST since 2005 when she was appointed the DSTO inaugural chair of photonics at the University of Adelaide.

Professor Monro is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Optical Society of America and the Australian Institute of Physics. She is a member of the Board of CSIRO and the South Australian Premier’s Economic Advisory Council and was previously a member of the Prime Minister’s Commonwealth Science Council.

Professor Monro obtained her PhD in physics in 1998 from the University of Sydney, for which she was awarded the Bragg Gold Medal for the best Physics PhD in Australia. In 2000, she received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton in the UK. She is also an inaugural Bragg Fellow of the Royal Institution of Australia. In 2008, Professor Monro received the Prime Minister’s Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year. She was named South Australian Scientist of the Year in 2010 and South Australia’s Australian of the Year in 2011. In 2015 she was awarded the Eureka Prize for excellence in interdisciplinary research.

Acting CDS Dr Todd Mansell and his DST Leadership Team colleagues congratulate Professor Monro on her appointment and look forward to working with her.

At the Secretary’s request, Dr Mansell will continue in the role of Acting CDS until Professor Monro joins DST in March.