Emeritus Professor Roland (Roly) Sussex OAM
 sussex.jpg)
Roly Sussex was born in Melbourne in 1945. At various times he has lived in New Zealand, Czechoslovakia and Britain, where he earned a doctorate in Slavonic and General Linguistics in 1971.
He became the foundation Professor of Russian at the University of Melbourne in 1977. He moved to Queensland in 1989 to become Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Queensland. He retired from the University in 2010 and is now Emeritus Professor.
Since 1997, he has been a regular weekly radio broadcaster on language with the ABC in Queensland, and more recently in South Australia and the Northern Territory. He writes a weekly column on language called The Word for The Courier-Mail.
Since 2009 he has been Chair of the Board of the State Library of Queensland, and since 2010 President of the Alliance Française of Brisbane.
He is a committed defender of the English language in Australia, and an energetic campaigner for the study of second languages. He believes that if Australia is to truly realize its national and international potential, all Australians should have a working knowledge of English and at least one other language.
He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012.
When he is not teaching and doing research, or writing and reading in different languages, he rides a bicycle in lycra for serious exercise, listens to classical music or works on his acreage in the western suburbs of Brisbane.
Roly is married with two children, a horse, a dog, a cat, two brown hens and one silky hen.