July 25, 2019

Engineering luminary honoured with prestigious professorship

Retired Executive Dean encourages graduates to change the world

Emeritus Professor Chris Cook has plenty of advice that he would like to impart on the 2019 graduating class of engineering students.

It is advice that he has gleaned throughout the course of his 40-plus year career, that has put him in good stead to face the challenges that one inevitably faces in the workforce.

“Build positive teams,” he said. “The team is commonly more powerful than the individual.

“Near enough can be good enough-what leaves your desk has to be fit for purpose-there isn’t time for everything to be perfectly finished,” he added. “The world is not kind to perfectionists, and often, trying to make something perfect means you are not making decisions quickly enough, which can stop other people from being able to do their jobs.

“And never ever ever ever give up.” This one, however, comes with one caveat. “Unless, of course, you are wrong!”

It is valuable advice from a man who helped to build the University of Wollongong from the ground up, who was instrumental in creating a faculty which now ranks very highly internationally in all its disciplines.

More than 45 years after he first came to Wollongong as a PhD student, Professor Cook was on stage at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences graduation ceremonies on Thursday (25 July) to accept an Emeritus Professorship.

Originally from South Australia, near Ceduna on the Great Australian Bight, Professor Cook grew up in the kind of tiny town that evokes images of a simpler time.

“I attended a one-teacher school which had 21 students who would all be collected in a four-wheel drive each morning from the surrounding properties. The town consisted of one general store and a jetty and we spent most of our time outdoors riding bikes, catching rabbits and just having fun,” he told UOW’s The Stand in 2017.

In high school, he was drawn to subjects like maths and physics and planned on attending the University of Adelaide to study science but in a last-minute decision instead pursued engineering and science double degrees at Adelaide. He arrived at Wollongong in 1972, ready to begin his PhD at the then Wollongong University College, a subsidiary of the University of New South Wales.

At the time, the College “only had 3000 students and everybody was on first-name basis”.

Professor Cook was the only PhD candidate studying electrical engineering, in stark contrast to the close to 600 PhD students now in the Faculty today.

Engineering and Information Sciences students celebrate their graduation on Thursday, 25 July.

“Most of the world relies on electrical engineering in IT or electronics,” he said. “I always say that nothing moves in a modern factory unless a computer controlled electric machine moves it. And virtually nothing works in a house, not even a tap, without a lot of engineering behind it.”

Professor Cook finished his PhD, but he was keen to see the world. He and his wife Dianne relocated to the United Kingdom, where Professor Cook landed a job with Marconi Avionics working in their Flight Automation Research Laboratory.

After returning to Australia, Professor Cook ended up back at the University of Wollongong after some time with GEC in Sydney building their industrial robotics group. He was the driving force behind setting up the University’s Automation and Engineering Applications Centre, the precursor to the large robotics and automation research group at the University today.

Over the following decades, he quietly and methodically built a reputation as a problem solver, mentor, and leader, someone who was able to forge a strong sense of team unity and nurture the talents of staff and students. This while also bringing in millions of dollars of research funding and maintaining a commitment to teaching and learning experience.

During his time at UOW, Professor Cook was Head of School, Engineering Faculty Dean, and then, in 2013, he was made Executive Dean of the newly created Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences. He retired at the end of 2017.

It was, he said, a role he loved, but one that came with the pressures that often accompany a high-profile job overseeing many moving parts.

“I wasn’t aware that I was under a lot of pressure,” he said. “I work very well when I’ve got a deadline, but often you are making decisions because you need to get the work off your desk.

“But when I retired, I felt like the pressure and stress lifted, even though I didn’t realise it was there.”

Although he is officially retired, he can still be found on campus a day a week, mentoring students and staff, working with them to refine ideas and contributing to the faculty’s ongoing success.

“I have the time now to think through things, to work on my ideas, and to give people advice. Without the pressure, I can do things more thoroughly. I’m working on projects that I really enjoy,” Professor Cook said.

Retirement has also given him more time to devote to his family. He has three daughters and six grandchildren, with one more on the way. Professor Cook said that working at a university gave him the flexibility to always be present in their lives.

“The University is family friendly and I’m proud of the fact that I never really missed a significant moment in their lives,” he reflected. “I was always able to be there at key events.”

Elizabeth Magassy, Christopher Cook and Joe Chicharo at the graduation ceremony on Thursday.

Professor Cook is thrilled to be honoured by the University with an Emeritus Professorship, which is given to a retired professor who has made a significant contribution to the institution.

In many ways, his journey from PhD student to Emeritus Professor mirrored the growth and transformation of the University as a whole.

“When I came to Wollongong, there were a handful of buildings and a coalwash car park,” he said. “We never could have imagined that the University could be what it is today. I think that is largely due to strong, stable leadership, in [former Vice-Chancellors] Professor Ken McKinnon and Professor Gerard Sutton, and now Professor Paul Wellings. But it is also about aspiration. We’ve always aspired to excellence.”

One of the highlights of his time at UOW has been attending more than 50 graduation ceremonies, which he describes as “joyous occasions”.

When he took the stage on Thursday morning, he implored the students in the audience to take their skills and talent and make an impact on the world.

“The most important thing is to try and leave the world a better place than you found it. Not only the overall environment, but your local world, your workplace and your relationships.”