Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull formally announced the appointment of Monash University Chancellor Dr Alan Finkel, to replace Professor Ian Chubb in January 2016.
“My vision is for a country, society and world where we don’t use any coal, oil or natural gas, where we have zero emissions electricity, But you can’t get there overnight,” Dr Finkel said.
“If we want to increase by a factor of four or five the total amount of electricity that we generate in order to replace oil for transport and gas for heating and coal in the first place, it’s a big challenge.
“I think that it’s not unreasonable to look at all viable alternatives.”
Dr Finkel completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies in engineering at Monash University before serving for two years as a neuroscience research fellow at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at The Australian National University.
In 1983, Dr Finkel established Axon Instruments, a supplier of electronic and robotic instruments and software for use in cellular neuroscience, genomics and drug discovery.
Speaking at Parliament House, Mr Turnbull praised Dr Finkel as a distinguished and successful academic engineer and neuroscientist.
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