June 22, 2023

Steel Hub’s Program Leader Professor Geoff Brooks wins Bessemer Gold Medal

The Steel Hub is very excited to announce Program Leader and Chief Investigator Geoff Brooks from Swinburne University of Technology has won the prestigious 2023 Bessemer Gold Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) in the UK.  

The Bessemer Gold Medal was awarded to Geoff for his outstanding services to the steel industry, specifically for his contributions to improving scientific understanding of the steelmaking process and making it more sustainable. 

Geoff will be presented the medal during the 2023 IOM3 Awards Day on December 7 at the Institute’s London headquarters.  

“I am so grateful to my many collaborators and students, who without their help and hard work I could not have won this award,” he said. 

“I also reflect on the journey I have been on. I remember struggling as a teenager and sneaking through the equivalent of VCE at the time. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would become internationally prominent in my field.” 

The Bessemer Medal was established and endowed to the Iron and Steel Institute in 1874 by one of the giants of the industrial revolution, Sir Henry Bessemer. 

Previous winners include Queen Victoria (1899), Andrew Carnegie, who led the expansion of the American steel industry (1904), influential BHP director Essington Lewis (1944), basic oxygen steelmaking inventor Robert Durrer (1957), and former Swinburne Dean of Engineering John Beynon (2015). 

“Many of my scientific heroes have won the medal, as well as several captains of industry,” Geoff said. 

“I am humbled to be on the same list as giants in my field.” 

The Steel Hub would like to congratulate Geoff on this very well-deserved award.