Howard was born and raised in
Camberwell, Victoria. He completed a
Master of Science, his first of five degrees at the
University of Melbourne in 1927; Howard also received an honorary doctorate in statistics and a PhD in linguistics from the
University of Queensland. He worked with the Department of Human Movement as a programmer and a statics consultant and an honorary researcher working full-time without pay for over 20 years. He stopped in 2003 at age 97. He was doing work on organic chemistry when he was approached by Sir
David Orme Masson for the
BANZARE. Within 48 hours Howard took the train to Perch and sailed to England on Orient Steam Navigation's Orvieto. Howard was made a
Member of the Order of Australia (AO) in the
1998 Australia Day Honours for "service to science through Antarctic exploration as a member of the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (1929–1931), for his work on food technology and preservation, and for his contribution to statistical design". Just before his 100th birthday, Howard, through pre-recorded film, opened the new Discovery's Ocean Odyssey wing at the Discovery Point museum in
Dundee, which stands beside the old restored ship Discovery. He was profiled in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's new exhibition Islands to Ice: The Great Southern Ocean and Antarctica in late 2010. In 2005, he donated 80,000 (AU$) for a computer laboratory for undergraduate students. Four years earlier in 2001 he was presented with the
Australian Geographic Society award. ==Death ==