Joss Bland-Hawthorn has tweeted that Prof. Richard Hunstead passed away last night. When I started my undergraduate studies at Sydney University, Dick was one of the organisers of the Talented Student Program. He bore with a smile my barrage of naive questions about the universe and cosmology, and directed me towards a project on the origin of wiggles in the cosmic microwave background. His enthusiasm was catching and I was hooked; almost 20 years later, I’m still researching cosmology.
I always found Dick to be friendly and approachable, as an undergrad, as a PhD student trying to work out how Australian astronomy worked, and as a postdoc. He had a wealth of knowledge and was highly respected. In the last few years, he gave a generous endowment to the Sydney Institute for Astronomy.
Rest in peace.
Letters to Nature 