The prime mover behind the introduction of modern analytical chemistry to Australia’s wine industry, Charles Sturt University’s (CSU’s) Geoff Scollary, has been awarded the 2000 Analytical Chemistry Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI).

Professor Scollary is the Head of CSU’s School of Wine & Food Sciences at the Wagga Wagga Campus and Director of the National Wine & Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC).

Chair of the Analytical Division of the RACI, Professor Brynn Hibbert of the University of NSW, said the award is a tribute to Professor Scollary’s role in the development of the Australian wine industry over his 20 year career.

“Geoff Scollary has made, and continues to make, an outstanding contribution to all facets of analytical chemistry in this country,” Professor Hibbert said.

His contribution to wine science and his collaboration with the industry was duly recognised in 1997, Professor Hibbert said, when he was appointed Chair of Wine Science at CSU.

Professor Scollary has published more than 80 papers and articles on the research, teaching and application of analytical chemistry as well as presented lectures at major international and national meetings.

“He has also attracted considerable internationally competitive research funding, particularly in the area of analytical chemistry applied to wine science,” Professor Hibbert said.

Geoff Scollary was awarded La Trobe University’s first PhD in chemistry in 1971. 

He began his academic career as a lecturer at the Melbourne College of Advanced Education in the same year, where he specialised in the teaching of analytical and environment chemistry.

In the early 1980s, he commenced his interest in wine chemistry and has since combined analytical chemistry with wine chemistry for a fruitful research and industry-related career.

Chair of the Analytical Chemistry Division of the RACI from 1995 to 1997, he also represented Australia on the European Division of Analytical Chemistry with the Federation of European Chemical Societies from 1992 to 1998.

He is a member of the Scientific Committee for the In Vino Analytica Scientica conferences held every four years in Bordeaux, France, to discuss links between analytical and wine chemistry - and has just returned to CSU from the 2001 conference where he chaired a session on traces and contaminants.

Through the NWGIC, located at CSU in Wagga Wagga, Professor Scollary also represents the University and NSW Agriculture on several national wine industry boards. 

The Medal will be presented to Professor Scollary at a meeting of the RACI in Melbourne in December.