Viera Scheibner - Education and Career

Education and Career

Viera Scheibner was born in Bratislava (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovak Republic). During her career she wrote scientific papers on the subject of Geology and Palaeontology published in peer-reviewed journals in Australia and overseas.

In 1953, Scheibner studied medicine for one year at the Medical Faculty (school) of the Czechoslovak state-run Jan Masaryk University in Brno. She did not complete her studies, and obtained no medical qualifications. She then enrolled in the Faculty of Natural Sciences (Geology), and in 1954 transferred to the Comenius University in Bratislava where she graduated in 1958. During 1958–1961, she became a lecturer in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology of the Comenius University, Bratislava and was also a Senior Lecturer 1962–1967, at the Department of Geology and Palaeontology at Comenius University. Scheibner was awarded a doctorate in Natural Sciences (RNDr.) from the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1964. In 1967–1968 she served as Senior Associate Professor (Docent) at the Department of Geology and Palaeontology of Jan Amos Comenius University, Bratislava. During her academic career 1958–1968 in Bratislava, she published 35 scientific papers and one monograph concerning the Cretaceous and Jurassic Foraminifera of the Carpathian Klippen Belt in Slovakia.

In 1968, Scheibner together with her husband Ervín immigrated to Australia and assumed a position as a micro-palaeontologist with the Geological Survey of New South Wales, Department of Mines, later becoming the Department of Mineral Resources. During her employment 1968 to 1987 with the Geological Survey of New South Wales, she held various titles as a research scientist, including principal research scientist until her retirement from the Department of Mineral Resources in 1987.

The primary emphasis of Scheibner's work in Australia with the NSW Department of Mines was the study of the Cretaceous and Permian Foraminifera of the Great Australian Basin in New South Wales. She also studied the South Australian and Carnarvon Basins in Western Australia, South Africa and the Indian Peninsula, and the Permian Foraminifera of the Sydney Basin. From 1972 to 1976 Scheibner was invited to participate in the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) conducted under the auspices of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The results of these studies were published in the Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP); she was also invited to write a Synopsis of Cretaceous Foraminifera of the Indian Ocean, published in a monograph entitled Synopsis of the DSDP in the Indian Ocean.