University of Warwick announces summer honorary degree recipients

The University of Warwick will be distributing honorary degrees to people of merit during the 2018 summer graduation ceremonies from 17-25 July in Butterworth Hall at the Warwick Arts Centre.

Some recipients include leading BBC Journalist Stephen Sackur, Paralympic rowing gold medallist Pamela Relph, and NASA scientist Douglas Terrier.

Stephen Sackur
Renowned British journalist, Stephen Sackur, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree. He is an award-winning presenter of HARDtalk, a flagship current affairs interview programme hosted by BBC World News and the main Friday presenter of GMT. He was appointed as a BBC Foreign Correspondent in 1990 and BBC’s Washington Correspondent in 1997. In 2010 he was awarded the “International TV Personality of the Year Award” by the Association of International Broadcasters.

Pamela Relph
Great Britain Paralympic Rowing Team member, Pamela Relph, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. She has suffered from psoriatic arthritis since the age of seven, which permanently damaged her joints, but continued to play sports. She joined the Rowing Team in 2011 and won a gold medal in the Summer Paralympics 2012 in London, then again in Rio 2016, becoming the first Paralympic rower in history to win two gold medals. Pamela also won 15 consecutive international races, including four consecutive World titles at the World Championships from 2011-2015.

Dr. Douglas Terrier
Dr. Douglas Terrier, NASA’s acting chief technologist, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. He is the principal advisor on NASA technology policy and helps to plot the strategic direction of the space technology program. He earned a PhD in aerospace engineering and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas. Dr Terrier first joined NASA in 2003 at the Langley Research Center in the Office of Business Development. He has been given the Lockheed Martin “Outstanding Technical Achievement” award on four occasions, several NASA “Superior Technical Accomplishment” awards, and the NASA Leadership medal.

Professor Alan Barrett
Professor Alan Barret is a major researcher on vaccines and health policy advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO) and will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. He studied and researched for three degrees at Warwick (BSc, MSc. PhD), and continues to support virologists at the University of Warwick’s School of Life Sciences. Professor Barrett has served in many WHO flavivirus vaccine groups, including for dengue fever, yellow fever, and tick-borne encephalitis. He is currently a member of the Working Group on Zika Vaccine Target Product Profile.

Professor Charles Fefferman
Professor Charles Fefferman, a Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. After showing exceptional ability in mathematics, he entered the University of Maryland in 1963, and received his PhD from Princeton University in 1969. He became a professor in the University of Chicago and was the youngest full professor ever appointed in the US. Professor Fefferman’s many awards included the Fields Medal in 1978, the Salem Prize in 1971, the Bergman Prize in 1992 and the Wolf Prize in 2017, one of the highest awards in his field.

Professor Chunali Bai
Leading research chemist and an expert in nanoscience, Professor Chunali Bai, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. His research areas include organic molecular crystal structure, molecular nanostructure, and scanning tunneling microscopy. He has been elected member of approximately 20 globally renown academies of sciences or engineering, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Bai also worked at California Institute of Technology and Tohoku University. He is current President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Honorary President of its university.

Deirdre N. McCloskey
Deirdre N. McCloskey is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois and will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Trained at Harvard as an economist, she has written sixteen books and edited seven more, and has published approximately 360 articles on economic theory, economic history, philosophy, rhetoric, feminism, ethics, and law. She taught Economics at the University of Chicago for 12 years. In her later work, she has turned to ethics and a philosophical-historical apology for modern economies. Her recent book, Bourgeois Equality, is a study of Dutch and British economic and social history.

Heidi Meyer
Master at the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick, Heidi Meyer, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. She is the first woman in its 450 year history to be Master. She began her career as captain in the British Army, assigned in Germany, Cyprus and the UK. She then began working for the Department of Defence and became Director of Disaster Relief. She has worked for the US Secretary of Defence in the Pentagon, Washington, and the US Embassy in Afghanistan. She was awarded the DoS Superior Honor Award by Ambassador Eikenberry for advancing governance effects in Afghanistan.

Dr Julie Maxton
The Executive Director of the Royal Society since 2011, Dr Julie Maxton, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. She is the first woman in 350 years to direct the Royal Society, and the first woman in 550 years to become Registrar at the University of Oxford. Dr Maxton is a Board member of the Alan Turing Institute, and held many senior academic positions overseas, such as the University of Auckland. She was also awarded Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Huddersfield and Canterbury. She received a CBE for her work in 2017.

Professor Dame Parveen Kumar
Professor Dame Parveen Kumar, who is recognised as one of the most distinguished physicians of her generation, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. She is a professor of medicine and education at Barts and the London School of Medicine, University of London. She won the first Asian Woman of the Year Award in 1999, and was awarded a CBE for her services to medicine in 2000. Professor Kumar became president of the Medical Women’s Federation and Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2017.

Peter Harris
Peter Harris, a South African conflict mediator, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. He was born in Durban and practised law for fifteen years. He graduated from the University of Warwick after earning a Masters in Law in 1989. In the early 1990s, he brokered agreements between political parties in South Africa to assist peace, and established the Monitoring Directorate of the Independent Electoral Commission. He published books about law and politics in South Africa, including In A Different Time in 2008 and Birth in 2010, both of which were highly commended.

Philippa Foster Back CBE
The Director of the Institute of Business Ethics, Philippa Foster Back, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. She began her career at Citibank NA, and now sits on the Boards/Advisory Boards of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, and RAND Europe. She is a Visiting Fellow of the Said Business School at Oxford University, and a former chairman of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. She was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours in 2006, and a CBE for her services to the UK Antarctic Heritage in 2014.

Smita Jamdar
Leader of the education team at Shakespeare Martineau, Smita Jamdar, will be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. She has worked at the legal firm for 20 years, and advises on higher education law. She is a co-author of Workplace Stress, Law and Practice (2003), a contributor to Higher Education Law (2002), and a sought-after speaker at education conferences. She regularly contributes to higher education media publications and websites, and is considered a leader in her field by the Legal 500 and other publications.