David Edward Peters

Early life

David Peters was born in England in 1938 and came to Australia as a schoolboy.

Tertiary education and early career

He jointed Monsanto Chemicals in Melbourne as a laboratory assistant in 1955 and studied part-time at RMIT, gaining a Diploma of Applied Chemistry in 1961.

In 1964 he became a laboratory technician at ANU while studying for a BSc (Hons).

He was awarded an Australian Wool Board research scholarship from 1968 to 1971 and received his PhD from ANU with a thesis titled Correlation of Chemistry and Fine Structure of Wool.

Time at CSIRO

David joined the hides, skins and leather program in the former Division of Protein Chemistry in 1971 and worked on a wide range of projects.

His many publications varied from The Australian Emu, a new source of novelty leather to A morphological study of the mild form of ovine dermatosparaxis.

he led a project team which successfully addressed problems in hide and skin defects and applied his knowledge of protein chemistry to assist in the development of a viable biomaterials industry in Australia. His studied attracted substantial financial support.

Career highlights at other organisations

David was seconded to the Federated Tanners’ Association of Australia Training Institute for the first six months of its operation in 1982.

In 1985 he was seconded to a company concerned with biomaterials to assist in the R&D program.

David also assisted industry by using his problem solving skills to determine the causes of leather defects.