Australia - People

There are nearly 300 Australian citizens currently studying at Oxford, making Australia Oxford’s 5th largest source of international talent in the world. More than three quarters are postgraduate students. The largest group of Australian students, including both undergraduate and postgraduate, are enrolled in social science programmes.

Australian students have access to an extensive range of scholarships, creating almost 100 funded places per year. The Oxford Australia Scholarship Fund was established in 1993 by donations from Australian Oxford graduates and since 1998, has supported 68 Australian scholars studying at the University of Oxford. It provides partial support for up to eight young Australians per year at post graduate or second Bachelor degree level. Since 2011, the Scholarship has increased the value of its awards in partnership with the Oxford University Clarendon Scholarships.

The Charlie Perkins Scholarships were established in 2009 to commemorate Dr Charles Perkins AO, who was the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate from university and the first Indigenous head of an Australian Government department. These Scholarships are earmarked for high-achieving Australian aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander scholars. In addition, Australian students enjoy a range of funding opportunities from external sources.

Many of Oxford’s 127 Australian academics are teaching and research staff, a number of whom came to the UK to study and have stayed in Oxford as academics. Oxford’s Australian academics and scientists are active in all of the University’s divisions and are pioneering cutting edge research using Oxford’s world-class facilities. In addition, some of the university’s most senior administrative staff come from Australia, including Glenn Swafford, the Director of Research Services, who joined Oxford from the University of Melbourne.

Professor Peter Donnelly
Peter Donnelly is Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Professor of Statistical Science. He uses mathematical and computational methods to analyse DNA variation data in order to identify the genetic basis of various diseases. He became the youngest professor in the UK when he took up a chair at the University of London at the age of 29. He has been elected to the membership or fellowship of a range of prestigious organisations, including the International Statistical Institute, the Institute of Actuaries, the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Donnelly was born in Brisbane, and obtained his BSc in Mathematics from the University of Queensland. He then came to Oxford to do his DPhil in mathematics at Balliol College as a Rhodes Scholar.

Dr Stephen Hicks
Dr Hicks is an Australian researcher in Clinical Neurology at Oxford. He is designing a set of glasses packed with technology normally seen in smart phones and games consoles to aid people who are legally blind or have almost no eyesight. The glasses will use tiny video cameras, microprocessors, and LED arrays (in lieu of lenses) to create a simplified representation of the visual field. The work has been honoured by the Royal Society in London, a fellowship of the world’s most eminent scientists, as one of the twenty projects exemplifying the latest in British science.

Dr Hicks grew up in Sydney and completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Sydney in 2005. 

Australia is home to the fourth largest concentration of Oxford alumni in the world. The University’s alumni are involved in every kind of career imaginable, from business to non-profit work, from the civil service to sports. Oxford has a particular concentration of Australian alumni in academia, the legal profession, and politics.

Examples of famous Australian Oxonians abound, including three Prime Ministers:

• Malcolm Fraser
• John Gorton
• Bob Hawke (the longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister)

Prominent Oxonian business leaders include:

• Patrick Forth, managing partner of Boston Consulting Group Sydney
• David Kirk, former chief executive officer of Fairfax Media and Chairman of Hoyts Cinemas
• Tim Sims, co-founder and managing director, Pacific Equity Partners
• Steven Skala AO, Vice Chairman, Deutsche Bank for Australia and New Zealand

In the arts, Oxford alumni include:

• Gerard Vaughan, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria
• Richard Flanagan, author, historian, and film director

In addition, three Nobel Prize winning Australians were educated at Oxford:

• Lord (Howard) Florey was co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Sir John Eccles was co-recipient of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on synapse
• Sir John Cornforth won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.

For Oxford’s alumni living in Australia, there are numerous alumni societies across the country, with groups based in Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Cairns. Societies hold regular sporting and social events.