David Blair

David Blair

Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia

David Blair is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Western Australia and member of Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). He leads an international project aiming to introduce Einsteinian concepts into school education at an early age.

His work has focused on the methods for the detection of gravitational waves. He built the first gravitational wave detector in Australia, and invented the sapphire clock, which was commercialised for precision radar systems as well as being used in metrology labs around the world.

He is a winner of the ANZAAS Medal, the Walter Boas Medal, the Breakthrough Prize, the Clunies Ross Medal for Science and Technology, and the Eureka Prize for public understanding of science.He was West Australian Scientist of the Year in 2007.