Michael Rooney graduated M.Sc. from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, in 1971 after spending the first few years of his career in the surface coatings and edible oils industries. He joined CSIRO, Australia's national research organization in 1968 , working food and packaging interactions. After spending a decade investigating the barrier properties of plastics he initiated research in active and intelligent packaging. This work involved devising and developing oxygen scavenging plastics, oxygen and leakage indicators and some films of horticultural packaging interest. He built up a multidicsiplinary team to give critical mass in these research areas while maintaining a close relationship with industry and government bodies internationally. In 1995 he edited the first book on the ative packaging of foods and has subsequently lectured widely on this subject.He was the 2002 recipient of the Riester-Davis award of the Food Packaging Division of IFT. Now working only part-time he is actively involved in CSIRO's projects on oxygen scavenging and tamper evidence, from the viewpoint of both food security, and thwarting prospective extortionists.