Article
BAMOS
Jun 2020
13
AMOS member highlight—an
interview with Peter Dexter
Veronica Tamsitt,
Education and Outreach Committee Chair
Peter Dexter has served as a member of the AMOS Education
and Outreach (E&O) Committee from 2015 following his
retirement until 2020, and is now moving on from the
committee so that he has more time to dedicate to his other
pursuits. As an acknowledgement of Peter's contributions to the
E&O Committee, we are highlighting his career and outreach
contributions. Peter gives many public talks and tutorials
covering meteorology, oceanography, climate, tsunamis and
the UN System for groups including U3A (both Warrnambool
and Port Fairy), Rotary, Probus, secondary schools, and short
segments on local radio (ABC and Community). I asked Peter
to shed some insight on his career and outreach activities,
and how he is adapting to doing science outreach during the
COVID‐19 pandemic.
How did you end up in a career in weather/ocean/
climate science?
I went from high school to study physics and maths at UQ. My
parents were not at all wealthy, so I desperately needed to get
financial support, applied to the Bureau to do a vacation job,
and ended up with a cadetship. After an honours degree; a
bit of a rollercoaster with the Bureau training school; a year of
forecasting (mostly aviation); back to JCU for two years to teach
physics and do a Masters in ocean remote using HF radar; then
the Bureau R&D working on numerical wave models and air‐sea
interaction, while completing a PhD part time from JCU, also in
ocean remote sensing; a post‐doc in the UK where I spent several
months at Southampton University studying oceanography
with Henry Charnock and Neil Wells; back again to the Bureau in
R&D for 2 years; then off to WMO in Geneva where I was Marine
Programme manager for 20 years; finally back once more to the
Bureau in 2004 where I headed the Ocean Services group for
the last 10 years of my paid career, while maintaining liaison
with UNESCO/IOC on behalf of the Bureau.
When and how did you first get involved in doing
outreach with community groups in Warrnambool?
I actually started outreach to school and University groups
while in Geneva, where my wife Robyn was head of maths at
a big international school and also taught some physics (using
meteorology, as she also trained initially as a meteorologist).
Back in Australia we established our home down near
Warrnambool/Port Fairy, to where I commuted every weekend
from my Bureau job and apartment in Melbourne. Robyn was
again teaching down there, and invited me to give some talks
to her primary school kids on meteorology and the United
Nations. Through AMOS, I was also asked to give a talk to an
aged care facility in Mentone, in Melbourne's south. Word got
about in Warrnambool, and I was then invited to talk to a local
Rotary group. Following this, I decided that I might be of some
use to the local U3A, so offered to give talks to their tutorial
group. Of course this was accepted. At around the same time
Jeanette suggested that I might like to join the E&O committee,
and things developed from there. Through contacts Robyn has
in the Victorian school system, I gained an introduction to the
local secondary schools, but COVID‐19 has put that on hold for
now.
What do you enjoy about doing education/outreach
with the public?
I'd have to say that the hugely positive responses to my talks that
I get from the public is the most enjoyable and also satisfying.
People are still keen to learn and understand, no matter what
their background. Of course meteorology, oceanography and
climate always generate interest, but my new series on WMO
and the UN System are also very popular. Personally, I strongly
believe that it is my responsibility, as both a scientist and former
international civil servant, to ensure that the public gets the
right message on issues where too many misrepresentations
and downright falsehoods are circulating in all forms of media.