Professor Allan Pring

I grew up in Melbourne where at primary school I started collecting rocks and minerals and from this a life long interest in minerals developed. I did a degree in Chemistry and Geology at Monash University and I designed my own honours project in chemistry looking at the crystal structure of some rare sulfide minerals. After doing geology at Monash, I decided that minerals were more interesting when considered a naturally occuring inorganic compounds rather than geological materials and my focus turned to Chemical Mineralogy.

I won a grant to do a Ph.D. in the Department of Phyiscal Chemistry at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof Sir John M Thomas. I was also a member of King's college, Cambridge. My thesis topic was a study of the crystal chemistry of caseuim and barium in mineral amd ceramics and application to the immboilization of high level nuclear waste. I returned to Australia in 1983 and took up a position as mineralogist at the South Australian Museum in 1984. This was largely a research position and this enabled me to undertake a wide range of mineralogical research on minerals, particularly sulfide minerals. At the same time I held affliated and adjunct positions in all three Universities in Adelaide. I have been fortuante to have continous financial support from the Australian Research Council. While at the SA Museum I supervised or co-supervised over 20 Ph.D. students and 10 post doctorail research fellows. In 2014 I joined Flinders University as Professor of Chemical Mineralogy.

I retired from Flinders University in June 2020 and now have an adjunct position at Flinders and also in the Department of Earh Sciences, University of Adelaide. 

I am no lonnger taking research students.