2024 Phil Law Medal

Dr Grahame Budd AM

The Club’s National Council is pleased to announce that Dr Grahame Budd AM has been awarded the prestigious Phillip Law Medal for 2024.

Grahame, as many members will know, has contributed to science for over 60 years as a biomedical researcher, specialising in human adaptation to extreme environments; as an ANARE medical doctor, expeditioner, station leader and explorer.

He has taken part in 12 Antarctic expeditions from 1954 – 2002 and is known to us all as ‘Mr Heard Island’, having participated in eight Heard Island expeditions, documenting glacier fluctuations and the island’s colonies of King Penguins and Fur Seals.

In January 1965 he was part of a team led by Warwick Deacock to make the first ascent of Mawson’s Peak (Big Ben), Australia’s highest mountain and only active volcano. This photo of Grahame dates from that time.  The expedition’s story is told in the book The Sea & The Snow, with the ascent of Big Ben described to Tim Bowden by Budd and Deacock in Aurora Journal, Autumn 2011.

Grahame joins the ranks of outstanding Medallists awarded since 2011.

The award presentation will be made in Melbourne at the forthcoming 2024 Annual General Meeting on 17 August 2024.