ASPS Life Member
Professor (Charles) Barry Osmond
Australian National University, ACT
Email: barry.osmond@anu.edu.au
Website: View website
Barry Osmond (BSc, MSc New England; PhD Adelaide) is an Australian plant biologist well known for his studies of the physiology of photosynthesis. His career was stimulated by research opportunities at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, interspersed with senior appointments in the United States (notably Duke University) and research collaborations in the United Kingdom at Cambridge and Sheffield and in Darmstadt, Göttingen and Jülich in Germany. Interests have ranged from C4 photosynthesis to CAM, photoprotection and photoinhibition.
His research on plant responses to excess light was supported by the US Department of Energy and other agencies, and by a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Barry’s last appointment before retirement was as President and Director of Research at Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 Center, a unique, visionary venture in experimental climate change science.
Retired since 2003, he is retains honorary fellow appointments in ANU and the University of Wollongong where is pursuing nonintrusive methods for ‘near remote sensing’ of photosynthesis using FRRF/LIFT (fast repetition rate fluorescence/light induced fluorescence transient) technologies that are well suited to capturing photosynthesis during sun flecks on old leaves in the shade.
Osmond CB (2014) Our eclectic adventures in the slower eras of photosynthesis: from New England down under to Biosphere 2 and beyond. Annual Review of Plant Biology 65: 1-32