Murray Batchelor was born in Taree, NSW, Australia. He completed 1st Class Honours with a University Medal in Theoretical Physics at The University of New South Wales in 1983. He obtained his PhD in Mathematics at The Australian National University in 1987 and then worked for a year at Instituut Lorentz for Theoretical Physics in Leiden, The Netherlands.

He was supported by the Australian Research Council for 18 consecutive years through the award of a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship, two Senior Research Fellowships and an Australian Professorial Fellowship. He has also held numerous Large Grants with the Australian Research Council.

He was awarded The Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal (1997) for outstanding research in physics and The Australian Mathematical Society Medal (1998) for distinguished research in the mathematical sciences. He is the only researcher to receive both awards.

He was promoted to full Professor at ANU in 2001. From mid 2005 to March 2013 he served as Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics, RSPE.

Professor Batchelor has held visiting positions at the Universities of Amsterdam, Oxford and Tokyo. In June 2008 he was awarded an Honorary Professorship from Chongqing University in China. He held a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford in 2013 and took up a position at Chongqing University in the Centre for Modern Physics. 

From 2009-2013 Professor Batchelor was Editor-in-Chief of the UK based Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical. Prior to this he was Mathematical Physics Section Editor (2007-2008) and a member of the Editorial Board (2005-2006). He also served on the Editorial Board of Journal of Statistical Mechanics (2004-2008). In 2007 he was a member of the Mathematical and Information Sciences and Technology Assessment Panel for the Australian Research Quality Framework.

Professor Batchelor is a Fellow of the Australian Mathematical Society, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK).

Professor Batchelor is a former Council Member of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Theoretical Physics and is a member of the Chatham High School Hall of Fame, where he participated in the Scientists in Schools program in 2013.

Entry at google scholar 

BSc (Hons) UNSW PhD ANU FAIP FAustMS FInstP