In memory of Dr Robert J Norman

Love Bob and Judy Norman

To a dear friend who helped us so much over the years

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with Robert over many years.

In memory of our best friend Rob xx

I'm so very sorry for your family's loss. Robert showed me much kindness from his office across the hall when I arrived to RMIT.

Very sorry for the loss of your dad. Rob leaving RMIT was a big loss for me as one of his closest colleagues for almost 10 years. We highly complimented each other in the work and science that we conducted, often disagreeing and working together to find ways of making our results stronger and more convincing; this was particularly true for the paper your dad led titled “Ionospheric Regions Producing Anomalous GNSS Radio Occultation Results”. I have been missing those interactions and I had hoped that we’d find an opportunity to work together again, and I’m very saddened that this won’t happen now. R.I.P Rob.

Very sorry for your loss. I’ve known Robert since I was a student at La Trobe, two decades ago, and have been a good friends since then. He was a good person. My deepest sympathy goes to his family and friends.

A lovely human being who left too early

Words seem small to express the sadness I feel about Rob’s death. I worked with Rob at RMIT during 2015 - 2019. He was a very kind,, helpful, humorous and professional manager. He came to office less frequently in 2019 due to treatment. Every time he came he had big smiles. My desk was so close to his office so I could hear he was still busy over the phone. His favourite phases, like "Let's crack it", has been curved in my mind. R.I.P. Rob!

I'm very sorry for your loss of your important family member. Robert and I worked together in RMIT, 2011-2012. Robert was a very good colleague that shared professional knowledge with me in terms of GNSS radio occultation.

It is very sad to hear of Robert’s passing and Diane and I express our condolences to Wanda and Robert’s family. Robert was one of my best research students. His strength was his mathematical and computing abilities, and he developed important techniques in determining how radio waves propagate across the world via the ionosphere and also how radio waves are affected as they propagate through the ionosphere from satellites to the ground. Dr John Bennett at Monash University and I collaborated on these types of problems since we were PhD students together at Melbourne University (in the 1960’s!!). John was a much better mathematician than I so it was important that I involved him as a joint supervisor for Robert’s PhD. After Robert completed his PhD he worked as a post-doc for John and I at various times on projects we had relating to the Jindalee Over The Horizon Radar system that surveys much of Australia’s coastline. He also worked in the UK where he developed software used by Prof Paul Canon and UK government radio communication departments. On returning to Melbourne I think he may have worked with John and I again before going to RMIT he worked mostly on developing methods for determining atmospheric properties from ‘occultation’ data of signals transmitted from satellites. The last (or close to last) paper on radio propagation that John and I collaborated on was a review of ionospheric ray tracing techniques and it was a collaboration with Robert as well. Robert was relatively quiet but he was friendly, always pleasant company, reliable and ‘of good character’ - a cliche, but people, such as Robert, who really are of good character are valued highly in life as colleagues and friends. Robert will be missed by many. Peter Dyson