Ocean Grove’s Professor David Runia has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to tertiary education and as an academic in the fields of humanities and social sciences.
Born in the Netherlands, Professor Runia’s family moved to Geelong when he was five years old, where he attended Geelong College.
He went on to work for 25 years as an academic at the Netherlands’ University of Leiden and other universities, specialising in classics and ancient philosophy.
In 2002 Prof Runia returned to Australia, taking up the position of Master at the University of Melbourne’s Queen’s College until 2016.
Prof Runia said his love of the ancient world was inspired by his teachers at Geelong College.
“I was very grateful to my Latin teacher at the Geelong College, Michael Keary, and other teachers, they really helped me on my path,” he said.
Prof Runia said he had enjoyed both aspects of his career.
“It was a real highlight working at universities in Europe… using libraries with ancient books and manuscripts, I loved doing that,” he said.
“And I very much enjoyed working (at Queen’s College) too, because very often you’re working with really talented young people who do need a bit of guidance at 18, 19 years old.”
Prof Runia thanked Gonni, his wife of more than 50 years, saying it would have been “really nice” if the AM could have been awarded jointly to her as well.
Matt Hewson
