Robert Park PhD

Professor Robert Park’s career began after he completed a PhD in Plant Pathology at La Trobe University in 1984. His first appointment was with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, where he worked on the impact of wheat stripe rust in the north eastern Australian wheat belt. He was appointed as a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney’s Plant Breeding Institute in 1988, and has worked there since on rust diseases of cereals. Professor Park was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt research award in Germany in 1995, and a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to the USA in 2010. In recognition of his work in China, he was awarded the Friendship Award of China in 2009. This is the highest honour that the Chinese Government bestows on foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to China.

Professor Park currently holds the Judith and David Coffey Chair in Sustainable Agriculture. He is Director of the Australian Cereal Rust Control Program, which includes nodes at the University of Adelaide, CSIRO Plant Industry, and the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre in Mexico (CIMMYT). His research group at the University of Sydney currently comprises 8 scientific staff and 7 support staff, and he currently supervises 4 postgraduate students. Professor Park has published more than 100 scholarly research papers, and with two colleagues co-authored a book that has become a standard reference in the field of wheat rust genetics.