OBITUARY

Alban Lynch died on 17/09/2021.

Emeritus Professor Alban Jude Lynch AO FTSE was an engineer, metallurgist and academic whose technical innovations transformed the mining sector in Australia and across the world.

Born in 1930, Professor Lynch studied Chemical Engineering part-time at the Sydney Technical College (soon to become the University of New South Wales) while working in the paint industry. In 1954 he joined the Zinc Corporation as a metallurgist, and soon earned a master’s degree and PhD from UNSW.

He started work at The University of Queensland in 1959 in the newly established Mineral Research Facility at the UQ Mine Site at Indooroopilly, then no more than a tin shed.

Over the next few years Professor Lynch led a research team who formed the foundation of the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, which was officially opened in 1971 with Alban as the first director — a role he held until 1990.

Professor Lynch was elected a Fellow of the Academy in 1979. He served Head of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering at the University of Queensland from 1988 until his retirement in 1993.

He continued to lecture on modelling and establishing research programs in countries such as Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey.

Professor Lynch wrote a number of books and over 150 technical publications. In 1999 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia “for service to the mining industry, particularly in the area of research and education”.

Alban Lynch died on 17 September 2021 aged 91, five years after Barbara, his wife of 60 years. He is survived by his children Mary, Joe, Pat, Angela, Martin, Carmel and Suzy, 21 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. 

The candidate has made a rare and critical contribution to Australia's mineral industries and their technologies.

The most important aspect of his contribution is the essential part that he played in the formation and subsequent direction of the most valuable of Australia's interfaces between mineral industries and universities -the J.K.M.R.C.

He has led the Centre to a position of international eminence while contributing personnally to technological developments in the industry. His personal contributions have been noted by award of a D.Sc. (U. N.S.W.), a visiting professorial appointment in USA. His published works are numerous and include a major book.