WOMAN SCIENTIST

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25713, 27 January 1949, Page 2

WOMAN SCIENTIST

AUSTRALIAN VISITOR A delegate to the Pacific Science Congress in New Zealand is one of the world’s few women micro-palaeon-tologists. She is Miss Irene Crespin, 8.A., Australian Commonwealth palaeontologist, who is closely associated with the search for oil in Australia and New Guinea. At the congress she represents the Australian Federal Bureau of Mineral Resources. Palaeontology is the science which deals with the life of past geological ages. . Miss Crespin is probably the only woman in the world to hold an official government position in this science. Like many other palaeontologists, she did not study as a scientist, but took an arts degree at Melbourne University, with geology as a major subject. However, after graduating, she worked for various mining organisations, and when the Australian Government established its first geological branch in 1927, she went to work with Mr Frederick Chapman, its chief palaeontologist. She soon learned to share his great interest in micropalaeontology, a subject in which he was a pioneer in Australia. In 1937, Mr Chapman retired and Miss Crespin was appointed chief palaeontologist in his place. This was the beginning of an extensive search for oil in Australia, and her work in micro-palaeontology became more and more important. In 1939, Miss Crespin went to Java and Sumatra to study techniques of micro-palaeontology used in oil drilling there. Later she worked with the famous Dutch-Chinese scientist, the late Dr. Tan Sin Hok.