Geology Graduate Student Research Fund

In 1991, J D (Doug) Campbell and Tony Reay celebrated 25 years of service to the Department of Geology. To honour this milestone, the Geology Graduate Student Research Fund was established to facilitate and encourage the research of Geology students at the University of Otago. Ongoing contributions from alumni and other donors have continued to expand the capital value of this fund. Disbursements of interest from this fund contribute to costs associated with student research projects – both in the laboratory and in the field.

Doug Campbell

Doug Campbell (Picture source: original on wall of Benson Common Room in Department of Geology)

Doug started out his geological training here at the University of Otago, where he completed his BSc in 1948 and MSc in 1950. He then moved to Canterbury for a lectureship under Professor R S Allan, before returning to Otago as a senior lecturer in historical geology in 1959.

As mentioned in his obituary from 2001 by Daphne Lee, "The outdoors featured largely in Doug's life, perhaps derived from his youth in the countryside near Wanganui. This, coupled with his deep interest in the origin and history of the New Zealand environment, attracted him to geology. However, as a geologist, paleontologist and stratigrapher, Doug had a long-standing deep interest in living and fossil plants from all parts of New Zealand. The progress that was made in plant macro fossil research over the last few decades of his life was in large part due to Doug's efforts, particularly through his supervision and encouragement of postgraduate students."

Tony Reay

Tony Reay (Picture source: Otago Geology Archive)

Originally trained at Leeds and Manchester, Tony was appointed as a lecturer in our department in 1965 and retired in 2002. During his career, he focused on making geochemistry and minerology accessible to a wide audience.

As outlined by Tony Hocken in his history of the department, Tony’s "establishment of a new, fully equipped and staffed geochemical laboratory for petrographic analysis was an undertaking of major significance to both the department and the University, which became an international standard. He went on to pioneer geochemical and X-ray technology applicable to mineralogy in Dunedin. His own research interests focussed upon the geochemistry and mineralogy of upper mantle rocks, xenoliths and megacrysts. Using these spheres of research, he brought analytical geochemistry and X-ray mineral technology into the department."

During their time in our department, Doug and Tony were the primary supervisors of 45 postgraduate students – and it is for research students like these that this fund is intended.