peter hannaford born 15 july 1939 is a university professor and director of the centre for atom optics and ultrafast spectroscopy at swinburne university of technology in melbourne winner of the walter boas medal in 1985hannaford studied at the university of melbourne bachelor of science bsc 1961 master of science msc 1963 doctor of philosophy phd 1968in 1964 hannaford became physics tutor at ormond college at the university of melbournethen in 1967 became research scientist at the csiro commonwealth scientific and industrial research organisation division of chemical physics 1971 to 1983 senior research scientist then principal research scientist 1974 at the csiro division of chemical physics 1972 to 1973 he was guest scientist at the university of reading jj thomson physical laboratory uk 1981 to 1982 science research council senior research fellow at the university of reading jj thomson physical laboratory 1983 senior principal research scientist at csiro division of chemical physics 1984 william evans visiting fellow at the university of otago in new zealand 1985 he was a member of the australian academy of science national committee for spectroscopy in 1989 he was royal society guest research fellow and visiting fellow at christ church college university of oxford uk from 1989 to 2001 he was chief research scientist at the csiro division of materials science and technology in clayton victoria from 1990 to 2000 he was professorial associate at the university of melbourne in 1991 he was australian academy of scienceroyal society exchange fellow in oxford ukin 1992 hannaford was guest scientist at the max planck institute of quantum optics in garching germany from 1993 to 2003 he was chair of the national committee for spectroscopy of the australian academy of science 1997 he was professorial fellow at the swinburne university of technology in hawthorn victoria in 1999 he was director of the centre for atom optics and ultrafast spectroscopy caous at swinburne university from 1999 to 2003 he was guest scientist at the european laboratory for nonlinear spectroscopy lens universit degli studi di firenze in italy in 2000 he was guest professor at the university of innsbruck austria in 2002 member of commission c15 atomic molecular and optical physics for the international union of pure and applied physics in 2003 he became n university distinguished professor at swinburne university of technologyhannaford is also institutional director of the australian research council centre of excellence for quantumatom optics at swinburne university of technology while at csiro in the 1970s to the 1990s he pioneered new techniques in high resolution and timeresolved laser spectroscopy which have been important for characterisation of the spectroscopic properties of a wide range of atoms in recent years he and his group at swinburne university have made important advances in the new fields of laser cooling of atoms atom optics boseeinstein condensation and femtosecond laser spectroscopy he has published over 150 papers in scientific journals and books his current projects include bec on a chip magnetic lattices quantum coherence molecular bec high harmonic generation ultrafast spectroscopy