Rate My Professor Graham Farquhar

Distinguished Professor Graham Farquhar AO, FAA, FRS, NAS serves in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University, where he has advanced plant science through decades of pioneering research. He completed his BSc at the Australian National University in 1968, BSc with Honours in Biophysics at the University of Queensland in 1969, and PhD at the Australian National University in 1973, supervised by I.R. Cowan and R.O. Slatyer. His early career included positions as Research Associate from 1973 to 1975 and Research Specialist from 1975 to 1976 at the DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University. Returning to ANU in 1976 as Research Fellow, he progressed to Senior Research Fellow in 1980, Fellow from 1980 to 1983, Senior Fellow from 1983 to 1988, Professor from 1988 to 2003, and has held the position of Distinguished Professor since 2003. Additional roles encompass Group Leader of Plant Environmental Biology from 1988 to 1989 and Environmental Biology Group from 1994 to 2009, as well as Deputy CEO and Program Leader of the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting from 1998 to 2001, and Associate Director of the Research School of Biological Sciences from 2005 to 2008.

Graham Farquhar's research specializations include the integration of photosynthesis and growth with nitrogen and water use of plants, stomatal physiology, isotopic composition of plants, and global change science. He leads the Farquhar Group focused on the coordination of CO2 fixation and transpiration in plants. Among his key publications are 'A biochemical model of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation in leaves of C3 species' (1980), 'On the relationship between carbon isotope discrimination and the intercellular carbon dioxide concentration in leaves' (1982), 'Stomatal conductance and photosynthesis' (1982), 'Carbon isotope discrimination and photosynthesis' (1989), and 'Simple scaling of photosynthesis from leaves to canopies without the errors of big-leaf models' (1997). With over 300 research publications and more than 122,000 citations, his contributions have significantly impacted plant biology, climate modeling, and agricultural water-use efficiency. Major awards and honors include the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science (2015), Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (2017), Senior Australian of the Year (2018), Rank Prize in Nutrition (2014 shared), shared Nobel Peace Prize through the IPCC (2007), Officer of the Order of Australia (2013), Gottschalk Medal (1983), Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture (2016), fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (1988), Royal Society (1995), and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (2013).