Emeritus Professor Brian Orr (right) with colleague Dr Yabai He

Emeritus Professor Brian Orr was recently made a Lifetime Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics in recognition of his many contributions to research in the fields of molecular and optical physics, including laser spectroscopy for industrial, biomedical and environmental applications.

Professor Orr came to Macquarie as Professor of Chemistry in 1988 after 18 years at the University of New South Wales. He describes himself as a hybrid chemist and physicist.

“Shortly after I joined Macquarie, the University’s Centre for Lasers and Applications was awarded Special Research Centre status, with [the late] Professor of Physics Jim Piper as its Director and myself as his deputy,” Professor Orr says. “This provided us with a significant research focus on laser science and engineering and on spin-off applications.”

Early in his career Professor Orr published several highly cited research papers on molecular electro-optic properties which gained him entry to the emerging field of nonlinear optics and optically detected physical processes in molecules.

Professor Orr moved to Macquarie’s Department of Physics in 2003, where he helped the Centre for Lasers and Applications evolve into the Macquarie University Photonics Research Centre in 2007, becoming its founding Director.

“I am not officially a physicist, I am a chemist, but that is often the way in science. At the boundaries, one field can merge into another, and that was the case for me in molecular and optical physics,” he says.

As a secondary school student, Professor Orr had considered becoming a Latin teacher until he became interested in electronics and chemistry sets. He majored in chemistry during his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Sydney in the 1960s, and went on to win the University Medal in chemistry in 1964. This led to a prestigious scholarship that supported his PhD in physical and theoretical chemistry at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

“My first genuine physics job was at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, working in the molecular spectroscopy group led by Nobel Laureate Gerhard Herzberg,” says Professor Orr.  He says he enjoyed being part of a talented international brigade of researchers during his time in both Bristol and Ottawa before returning to Australia to become a lecturer in physical chemistry at the University of New South Wales in 1969.

Professor Orr has had many notable career achievements, although he says he did not get there alone and appreciates the support of his family and many expert co-researchers.  His achievements include being the first recipient of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Physical Chemistry Division Medal in 1994, being awarded the Optical Society of America’s William F. Meggers Award ‘for outstanding work in spectroscopy’ in 2004; and receiving the Australian Optical Society’s W.H. (Beattie) Steel Medal in 2005.