Getting to know … Patrick Moriarty
Dr Patrick Moriarty
Name: Patrick Moriarty
Title: Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
Faculty: Art, Design and Architecture
Department: Design
Campus: Caulfield
How long have you worked at Monash?
I started work at Caulfield Institute of Technology at the start of the 1977 year, nearly 35 years ago, well before it became part of Monash.
Where did you work prior to starting at the University?
After finishing my PhD at the start of 1971, I taught Civil Engineering as a volunteer at Dar es Salaam Technical College (now Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology) in Tanzania for six years. I also did research for the National Housing and Building Research Unit on low-cost housing, especially earth housing.
What do you like best about your role?
I enjoy working in a small department and faculty, with colleagues whose approach to problems is often very different from my own.
Why did you choose your current career path?
I think I’ve mainly reacted to events. I started out in Civil, then shifted to Mechanical Engineering. When the last unit of Mechanical Engineering finally moved to Clayton, I shifted to Design, partly because I like to walk to work, and I live only 2.5 km from the Caulfield campus.
First job?/Worst job?
My first (and worst) job was picking strawberries during the summer school holidays on farms in Silvan.
What research are you currently working on and what does it involve?
Mainly I work on the future of energy sources—fossil, nuclear, renewable—from an Earth System Science viewpoint. For example, how easy will it be for the world to move from fossil to renewable energy? (I suspect that it will be very difficult unless we cut our energy use.)
What is your favourite place in the world and why?
Melbourne, Australia. It’s where I live.
What is your favourite place to eat and why?
No favourite one, but I like restaurants with good vegetarian dishes.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
I don’t think there is any one piece of wisdom that stands out, but I like the following quote: “Nobody’s last words have ever been ‘I should have gone to the office more often’”.
I’ve worked part-time for nearly all my adult life.
Tell us something about yourself that your colleagues wouldn’t know?
My personal library of poetry books today outnumbers my engineering books by about ten to one.