OBITUARY

Gunnar Hambraeus died on 06/05/2019.

Professor Gunnar Hambraeus was a world-renowned technologist who advanced international collaboration in the applied sciences. He was born in Orsa, Sweden in 1919, in the wake of the First World War, to a renowned priest/novelist and a musical educator.

After studying engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm during the early 1940s, Professor Hambraeus became Assistant Secretary, and later Secretary, of Sweden’s State Technical Research Council. From 1950 to 1951 he served as Technical Advisor at the Swedish Embassy in Washington.

Professor Hambraeus had a passion for spreading knowledge about all kinds of technology, including as Editor-in-Chief of Technical and Founder of New Technology. He was a regular science communicator on European radio, and commented on the space race on television in the 1960s.

He served as CEO (1971-1982) and President (1983-1985) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, which was founded in the year of his birth and is the oldest engineering academy in the world.

Professor Hambraeus had a truly global mindset, and believed in breaking down barriers to advance technology and engineering for all of humanity.

When China was opened to foreign visitors after the Cultural Revolution, he was one of the first Western figures to negotiate a research exchange with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also served as Chair of the Scandinavia-Japan Saskawa Foundation.

In the late 1970s Professor Hambraeus helped lead the establishment of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS) with ATSE and four other institutions. CAETS now has over 20 member organisations.

Professor Hambraeus was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering in 1983 and made several trips to Australia to contribute to Academy events.

He had numerous accolades and was a member of many technical and engineering academies, including the British Royal Academy of Engineering, the Finish Academy of Technology, the National Academy of Engineering of Mexico, and Academia Europa.

Professor Hambraeus died on 5 June 2019, several months after Elsa — his wife of more than 70 years — and shortly after his 100th birthday.