Australian Dictionary of Biography

Pamela Wills, no date

Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

Pamela Anne Wills (1927–1999), research biologist and radiology scientist, was born on 4 December 1927 at Rockdale, Sydney, elder child of Sydney-born parents Alec Prideaux Wills, analytical chemist, and his wife Marjorie Winifred Sarah, née Goodman. Pam spent her childhood at Cronulla, and was educated at St George Girls’ High School, Kogarah, before completing her Leaving certificate at Methodist Ladies’ College, Burwood, in 1944. She performed well in a range of subjects, and received vocational guidance recommending careers as an industrial chemist, laboratory assistant, librarian, secretary, or veterinary scientist. In accord with this advice and to fulfil her ambition of working in a laboratory, in 1945 she enrolled at the University of Sydney (BSc, 1948), majoring in chemistry and biochemistry.

Following her graduation Wills spent several years in Sydney, initially as a biochemist in the department of pathology at the Royal Hospital for Women at Paddington, undertaking routine biochemistry procedures. She left the hospital in February 1950 to take up a role as assistant librarian at Imperial Chemical Industries of Australia and New Zealand Ltd.

In April 1951 Wills went overseas, hitchhiking with a friend in Europe and sparking a lifelong passion for travel. After arriving in England, she needed work, and took up a research position in the bacteriological department of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at Beckenham. With her funds replenished, she undertook another trip hitchhiking with a companion through Europe to Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. On returning to Britain, for six months in 1952 she was employed as a researcher for the biophysicist E. J. Harris at the University of London. In this role she worked for the first time with radioactive isotopes, which she later recalled had fascinated her.

Returning to Australia, Wills was offered a job as a biochemist at the Australian Institute of Anatomy within the Commonwealth Department of Health in Canberra, which she began in August 1953. As part of her role, in 1956 she undertook a nine-month secondment with the South Pacific Commission in Noumea, New Caledonia. There she worked as a biochemical laboratory technician, analysing local foods for carotene, thiamine, niacin, and ascorbic acid, writing reports and papers for the department, and exploring the island on a motor scooter in her spare time. Not only did this secondment fulfil her desire for travel, but it cemented her interest in working in nutrition and food science, a pursuit that would become an important part of her life’s work. Upon her return, she transferred within the Department of Health to Lismore, where she was employed in the Commonwealth Health Laboratory for two months before resigning. Her resignation coincided with her decision to return to Britain to study nutrition in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London (MSc, 1959) in April 1957.

While completing her thesis on lipid excretion, Wills was hired as a research assistant in the department of chemistry and food technology at Borough Polytechnic, London. She was subsequently offered a position as a research officer within the radiation research group at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC; from 1987 the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) in Sydney. Before returning to Australia she once again visited Europe, including travelling through Spain on the back of her brother Graham’s scooter.

Commencing at the AAEC in 1960, Wills spent the next twenty-eight years there, progressing through the ranks to become the head of the irradiation research and technology section of the organisation’s isotope division. In 1963 the AAEC’s newsletter described her as having ‘successfully competed in what tends to be regarded as a man’s domain’ (Newsletter 1963, 6). Over her years at the commission her research focused on the development of industrial uses for radiation. This included insect control, medical instrument sterilisation, and food irradiation. In the 1970s her research demonstrated that irradiating hives prevented the spread of fatal brood disease among bee populations. She used similar research to help control the spread of Queensland fruit fly throughout New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.

Besides the control of insects, Wills was particularly interested in, and an advocate for, the use of radiation in preventing crop loss and encouraging food growth and improvement. Her engagement with research into food irradiation took her overseas many times in the 1970s, as she attended numerous international conferences and encouraged transnational collaboration on the issue. Despite her commitment to researching food irradiation during her time at the AAEC, the Australian government maintained a ban on food irradiation that would only be partially lifted a few months after her death.

Retiring in 1988, Wills began work as a consultant on radiation processing for a variety of organisations and companies. Among them were the World Health Organization and Ansell-Steritech Ltd, the Asia-Pacific’s leading decontamination and sterilisation processor. In 1991 she suffered a cerebral haemorrhage that spelt the end of her consultancy career. After several months recovering from heart valve surgery, she died on 10 June 1999 at Camperdown, from the infection of an injury caused by a fall; she was cremated. The details of her final months were outlined for her friends and family in ‘The Pamela Wills Bulletin,’ a hand-written circular produced by her friend Shirley Miller and (occasionally) her brother. At the time of her death, she was the only woman scientist to have reached the position of senior principal research scientist at the AAEC. In describing her last months, the bulletin reflected her stoicism and persistence in the face of hardship, characteristics that had enabled her career to flourish, irrespective of the challenges she faced as a woman in radiation science.