David Edmund Caro

David Edmund Caro was born in St Kilda, Victoria, on 29 June 1922,^[1] the only son of George Alfred and Alice Lilian Caro.^[2] He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and entered the University of Melbourne in 1940, intending to pursue a degree in science. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, and he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on 20 September 1941. Like many recruits who knew some physics, he was sent to study radar systems. He was commissioned as a pilot officer on 9 March 1942, and was subsequently promoted to flying officer on 6 September 1942 and flight lieutenant on 1 December 1943. He served in the Northern Territory with No. 44 Radar Wing and at Port Moresby in Papua, where he maintained radars in support of Nos 6, 7 and 100 Squadrons.^[1][3]

After the war ended, Caro's RAAF appointment was terminated on 17 January 1946,^[1] and he returned to his studies at the University of Melbourne, graduating with his Bachelor of Science degree in 1946.^[4] He them embarked on a Master of Science degree under the tutelage of Philip Law, who later became the director of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions from 1949 to 1966. Caro used his electronic skills to build a spectrometer for measuring the cosmic rays in Antarctica, field-testing it on Mount Hotham.^[3][5][6] He was awarded his Master of Science in 1949,^[7] and was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship to study in the UK.^[5][8] He went to the University of Birmingham, where he assisted the expatriate Australian professor of physics, Mark Oliphant, in the construction of the Birmingham proton synchrotron.^[3] He wrote his 1951 Doctor of Philosophy thesis on "Some aspects of the radio frequency system of the Birmingham proton synchroton".^[9]

Caro returned to the University of Melbourne, where he was appointed a lecturer in 1952, senior lecturer in 1954 and reader in 1958.^[10] On 27 February 1954, he married Fiona MacLeod, the younger daughter of Lieutenant Colonel T. B. Macleod, of Richmond, Tasmania, in a ceremony at St David's Cathedral in Hobart officiated by Percy Fewtrell, the Dean of Hobart.^[2] They had two children, Richard and Catriona. With research student John Rouse, Caro built a variable-energy cyclotron at the University of Melbourne, the first of its kind. He commenced the design in June 1953 and construction began in 1954. The machine provided generations of research students with experience in nuclear physics but Caro made little use of it himself; for him the challenge was in building the machine rather than in using it for experiments.^{[3][11][12][13]}

Appointed professor of experimental physics and head of the physics department in 1961, Caro overhauled the physics curriculum. Construction of a new physics building was initiated. Opened in 1974, it now bears Caro's name. The physics department's high energy research group conducted experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States that generated hundreds of thousands of bubble chamber images. Seeking a way to automate their processing, Caro learned to program computers. After he became deputy vice chancellor in 1972, he computerised the university's administrative systems. He also overhauled the distribution of funds, replacing the old arbitrary mechanisms with a more transparent procedure.^[3]