Rod Boswell

Rod Boswell is an Australian scientist and researcher. He is a Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, in the Space Plasma, Power and Propulsion group of the Plasma Research Laboratory. He invented a technology which become the basis for the development of a new type of rocket thruster, the Helicon Double Layer Thruster: the ongoing development of the Australian Plasma Thruster is supported by the European Space Agency.

His graduate studies were undertaken at Flinders University, in South Australia where, in 1969, he was instrumental in establishing the radical student newspaper "Empire Times" by purchasing and running, in the living room of his home, an offset press, thereby liberating the new newspaper from the censorious tendencies of commercial printers of the times.