Founders Award Citation for David Clark Mugford
David Mugford began his career on a studentship at the South Australian Department of Chemistry, graduating BSc (Chem) Adel. in 1964. His involvement with the RACI Cereal Chemistry Division began two years later, when he attended the 1966 (Canberra) and 1967 (Wagga) conferences. As a junior member of staff, this had to be at his own expense, demonstrating a positive attitude to learning and involvement at an early stage of his career. David has been involved with the Division ever since. In turn, he believes the Division has been responsible for stimulating the growth of his various interests through its conferences and technical committees.
In the same year that man first set foot on the moon, 1969, David was setting his feet in another remote place, Papua New Guinea, where he spent a year working with Australian Volunteers Abroad as a teacher. He returned to Australia in 1970 and he took up a position as Senior Analyst with the Bread Research Institute of Australia (now BRI Australia Ltd). He stayed with this institution for the remainder of his career, in Analytical methods R&D, Quality Assurance, as Head of the Analytical Laboratory, and finally as Consulting Analyst for Analytical Support to Industry. He completed a Graduate Diploma of Applied Science in Information at UTS in 1990 and became a fellow of the Institute in 1997. He retired from full time employment at BRI Australia in December 2004
David Mugford has had many roles within the Cereal Chemistry Division. He was a member of the 1968, 1972, 1978 and 1985 Conference committees, being the 1972 Conference Secretary and the 1985 Conference Chairman. As a member of the 1968 conference committee he developed the Divisional Logo, originally called the Divisional Emblem, which was adopted at the 1968 Annual General Meeting. David has attended 25 Australian Cereal Conferences not including 2005 and has presented a total of 25 papers at RACI Cereal and Analytical conferences
David was Division Secretary from 1980-82 and also served many years on technical committees, some as Methods convenor. From 1990 to 1995 he was Cereal Products Standards Convenor. Between 1998 and 2000 he managed a GRDC research project for the Division on “Standardised Nitrogen Measurement by Dumas and Kjeldahl Methods”. David also ran an excellent metrology session for the Division at the 11th National RACI Convention, held in Canberra in 2000.
As well as his activities with the Cereal Chemistry Division, he has been actively involved with other scientific organisations, such as AACC (member since 1968), AIFST, NATA and the Nutrition Society of Australia. In AOACI he has served on the committee on Food Nutrition and the Wiley Award Committee.
