DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

PRESS STATEMENT ; 'OR HEALTH, MR RALPH HUNT

4/78

NEW DIRECTOR FOR AUSTRALIAN RADIATION LABORATORY

A prominent Australian physicist has returned from overseas

to become Director of the Australian Radiation Laboratory in Melbourne.

He is Dr Keith Lokan, a South Australian who for the past

nine years has been Head of the Electron Linear Accelerator

Laboratory at the Division of Physics of the Canadian National

Research Council, based in Ottawa.

The Minister for Health, Mr Ralph Hunt, said today

applications for the Melbourne post had been called world-wide.

He was delighted that an expatriate Australian had been the

successful applicant - a choice which emphasised that Australian

expertise in radiation matters was of world standard.

Mr Hunt described Dr Lokan1s appointment as a case of

'reversal of the brain drain1.

Dr Lokan, who took up duty at the beginning of this month,

graduated with honours from Adelaide University in 1955, and four

years later was awarded a Ph.D. at the Australian National University.

|  He spent three years as a Research Fellow at the Atomic

Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, in the United Kingdom,

and was a senior lecturer at the Universities of Melbourne and Adelaide

before accepting the Canadian appointment.

Dr Lokan succeeds Mr D.J. Stevens, who retired last year

after 20 years as Director of the Radiation Laboratory.

Under Mr Stevens' guidance, the Laboratory won a high

reputation world-wide.

The main functions of the Laboratory - a branch of the

Commonwealth Department of Health - are to:Â­

. provide surveillance and advisory services bn health hazards

from various sources of radiation;

.  prepare radiation protection standards and codes of practice

for the safe and effective use of such sources;

.  maintain national standards of radiation dose and of

radioactivity.

Canberra, 19 January, 1978.

