Visiting Fellow
Wood anatomy, wood identification, electron microscopy
Phone: +61 2 6295 0932
Fax: + 61 (0)2 6125 0746
E-mail: yolandah@bigpond.com

On leaving school, Roger joined the RAAF and spent the following 12 years on various air-force stations in Australia and south-east Asia. In 1968, he came to Canberra to work as an electronics technician at the Satellite Tracking Station at Orroral Valley. In 1983, he commenced employment as a Senior Technical Officer at the ANU SEM Unit, which at that time was located in the Forestry Engineering Wing but was later moved to RSBS. In 1991, he began part-time research on the wood anatomy of Callitris (cypress pine) using electron microscopy, for which he was awarded a PhD in 1997. Roger was employed at ANU for 21 years until his retirement in 2004. On retirement he was appointed a Visiting Fellow in the Fenner School.

Professional Activities

My main interest is in the use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the study of wood anatomy. I find that SEM is ideally suited to this application and there is ample scope for high-resolution microscopy studies of the wood of many Australian species. I am particularly interested in the wood anatomy of softwoods.

I conduct the Forest Products (ENVS4008) practical classes in wood identification.

Selected Publications

Burrows, G.E., P.F.Meagher and R.D. Heady. 2007. An Anatomical Assessment of Branch Abscission and Branch-base Hydraulic Architecture in the Endangered Wollemia nobilis. Annals of Botany 99: 609-623.

Heady, R.D. and P.D. Evans. 2005. Wood Anatomy of Actinostrobus (Cupressaceae). IAWA Journal 26(1): 79-92.

Heady, R.D., J.G. Banks and P.D. Evans. 2002. Wood Anatomy of Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis, Araucariaceae). IAWA Journal 23(4): 339-357.

Heady, R.D. and P.D. Evans. 2000. Callitroid thickening in Callitris. IAWA Journal 21(3): 293-319.

Heady, R.D., Cunningham, R.B., Donnelly, C.F. and P.D. Evans. 1994. Morphology of warts in the tracheids of cypress pine (Callitris Vent.). IAWA Journal 15(3): 265-281.