Background
KARMEL, Peter was born on May 9, 1922 in Melbourne. Son of Simeon and Ethel Karmel.
KARMEL, Peter was born on May 9, 1922 in Melbourne. Son of Simeon and Ethel Karmel.
He graduated Bachelor in the School of Economics in 1942, winning the Wyselaskie Scholarship and the Aitcheson Travelling Scholarship. In that year, he was awarded the Rouse Ball studentship at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy on Male and Female Fertility Rates.
After working at the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics in Canberra, Karmel accepted a lectureship in Economics and Economic History at the University of Melbourne in 1946. He was awarded a Rockefeller Grant that enabled him to visit America before his return to Melbourne as Senior Lecturer in 1949. At the age of 27, Karmel was appointment to the Chair of Economics at the University of Adelaide in 1950, later moving the Australian National University.
His economic research included a focus on educational issues.
In 1962, at the University of Melbourne during the third annual conference of the Australian College of Educators, he delivered the inaugural Buntine Oration, on the topic "Some Economic Aspects of Education". In 1971 he moved back to Canberra to head the Australian Universities Commission, becoming Chairman and head of its successor, the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission.
Professor Karmel released a 1973 report commissioned by the Whitlam government named Schools in Australia which influenced the government"s funding of state schools. Karmel served as the Vice-Chancellor of both Flinders University (1966) and the Australian National University (1982-1987).
He was the first person to hold the position at Flinders.
The Peter Karmel Building at the American National University School of Music is named in his honour. He died in Canberra on 30 December 2008, aged 86.
He was a member of the board for the Centre for the Mind from 1997 to 1999.
Married Lena Garrett in 1946.