Skip to main content

World Highways contributor Max Lay wins Peter Nicol Russell award

The Institution of Engineers Australia has awarded World Highways contributor Dr Maxwell Lay the prestigious Peter Nicol Russell medal for his contribution to science and engineering. According to the citation, the medal is the most prestigious award made by the institution. “The recipient represents the technical, professional and community service standards of engineering to the profession and the community.” May received degrees at Melbourne University and the US university Lehigh in Pennsylvania.
December 9, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The Institution of Engineers Australia has awarded 3260 World Highways contributor %$Linker: 2 Internal <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 2 1845 0 oLinkExternal Dr Maxwell Lay Visit &quot;Road user charging the way to highway investment&quot; page false /categories/traffic-focus-highway-management/features/road-user-charging-the-way-to-highway-investment/ false false%> the prestigious Peter Nicol Russell medal for his contribution to science and engineering.

According to the citation, the medal is the most prestigious award made by the institution. “The recipient represents the technical, professional and community service standards of engineering to the profession and the community.”  

May received degrees at Melbourne University and the US university Lehigh in Pennsylvania. He was appointed executive director of the Australian Road Research Board in 1975. After 13 years he moved to 5155 VicRoads, the Victoria state organisation for planning, developing and managing arterial roads. Among his responsibilities at VicRoads was the Eastern Freeway and Western Ring Road. He later joined consulting engineering firm SKM in Melbourne.

Lay was a founding director of toll road company ConnectEast that is responsible for the finance, design, construction and operation of Melbourne's 39km EastLink tollway project. In late 2011, the company was sold to Horizon Roads for around US$1.83 billion (AUS$2.2 billion).

He also is an advisor to the non-political industry association Roads Australia, a professorial fellow at Melbourne University and was president of the Australian Automobile Association from 2000-2002.

Sir Peter Nicol Russell was a Sydney industrialist during the last half of the 19th century.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • IRF announces winners of its 2018 Global Road Achievement Awards
    January 15, 2019
    IRF has announced the winners of the 2018 IRF Global Road Achievement Awards, a global competition to recognise outstanding achievement by road professionals. Instituted in 2000, the Awards have distinguished 150 programs, projects and products from around the world. This year, the IRF is honouring 11 projects from around the world, each leading the way in innovation across major road and highway disciplines. The selection was made by an international panel of senior road development specialists. "As an in
  • Video: Wheelchair user hitches car ride up a hill
    November 12, 2015
    A wheelchair user was recently caught hitching a ride up a hill in the Brazilian city of Salvador. It’s slow progress, as the video shows, and care was taken by the driver to deliver his “passenger”. It is not known if the wheelchair owner had to pay for his external ride. His feat was not the first time he has picked up a lift, according to media reports that quote some of his neighbours. Media have also said the city is one of Brazil’s worst for getting around if you are in a wheelchair. The head
  • VIDEO: Life in the deteriorating lane – Pennsylvania Turnpike
    October 17, 2016
    Nothing lasts forever, including – and perhaps especially – highways. One fine example of this is a 21km section of the original 580km Pennsylvania Turnpike in the US state of Pennsylvania.

    As the video shows, vegetation, animals and cyclists have slowly been reclaiming part of what was hailed as an engineering masterpiece when it was opened in 1940.
  • Turkmenistan starts construction of Ashgabat-Turkmenbashi road
    May 8, 2015
    Turkmenistan has started construction of the 544km Ashgabat-Turkmenbashi highway under a public-private partnership contract. The deal is expected to cost between US$800-900 million for every 2km or so of road construction from Ashgabat in central Turkmenistan to Turkmenbashi, a city of around 90,000 on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. For a YouTube video graphic representation of the highway, click here. To see World Highways report onTurkmenistan’s highways projects in 2011, click here. Türkmenb