Donald Melrose

Donald Blair Melrose FAA (born 13 September 1940) is an Australian theoretical physicist, Rhodes Scholar and laureate of the Chandrasekhar prize in Plasma Physics.

He is Professor of the University, and Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Sydney, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and Dozor Fellow at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He was the Director of the Research Centre for Theoretical Astrophysics (1991-1999) and Head of the School of Physics (2001-2002) at the University of Sydney.

Melrose has made pioneering contributions in pulsar and solar astrophysics, as well as in the quantum theory of plasmas. He developed the covariant formulation of quantum plasmas, known as quantum plasmadynamics, by synthesising quantum electrodynamics with the kinetic theory of plasmas. He is widely regarded as a world leading expert on coherent emission processes in plasma astrophysics. Melrose is considered by many as one of the greatest living plasma physicists due to the breadth and depth of his work.

Melrose has received several prizes and awards including the 2016 Chandrasekhar prize "For his sustained original contributions to the theory of coherent emission processes in astrophysical and space plasmas, and for his seminal contributions to the theory of quantum plasmas", the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal of the Australian Academy of Science, the Harrie Massey Medal and Prize jointly awarded by the Institute of Physics and the Australian Institute of Physics, and the Ellery Medal of the Astronomical Society of Australia. Provided by Wikipedia