Post Doctoral Fellowship 1971-1973

Research School of Chemistry at ANU with Professor David Craig. 

RMIT 1973-2013

Ian took up a lectureship at RMIT in May 1973.

Here he and Professor Bill Van Megen started a long and productive collaboration, working on Colloidal particles. Ian was able to apply his knowledge of Intermolecular Forces to Colloids. Despite heavy teaching loads and an absence of a research culture at RMIT, Ian and Bill were able to establish themselves as leaders in Colloid Research. 

In the late 1970s, Ian and Bill encouaged young RMIT Physics students to enrol in Masters degrees. These students became the first Post Graduates at the University. Later, Ian's student, Tony Hughes was one of the first PhDs awarded at RMIT.

Ian became an inaugural associate professor in 1992, when RMIT gained University status.

He became professor of Condensed Matter Physics by personal promotion in 1994 and continued in that role until his death in 2013.

Visiting Positions

IBM World Trade Fellow, IBM laboratories, San Jose, California (1976-1977). He worked for 12 months with Drs John Barker, Doug Henderson and Farid Abraham. 

Ceramics Processing Research Laboratories, MIT Boston in 1984 -  3 months

University of California Santa Barbara in 1984 - 3 months, working with Prof David Cannell.

Solid State Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Tennessee in 1986 - 1 month, working with the late John Hayter.

Mathematics Institute, Odense University in 1989 - 1 month, working with Prof John Perram

Atomic Simulation Group at Queens University, Belfast, in 2002, working with Prof Ruth Linden Bell.

Cambridge University in 2002 and 2003 with Prof Richard Needs and Dr Mike Towler.

Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany with Profs Kurt Binder, Thomas Palberg and Tanja Schilling. 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. This was a major collaboration and produced many papers and a joint ARC grant.