Honours
Dr Alan Haywood (School of Earth and Environment) has been awarded a £70,000 Philip Leverhulme Prize from the Leverhulme Trust in recognition of his substantial research contributions to the field of palaeoclimatology. His research, published in Nature, showed that a drop in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere led to the creation of the Greenland icesheet three million years ago.
Professor Surya Subedi (School of Law) has been appointed by the government of Nepal as a governor of the National Trust for Nature Conservation. Professor Subedi’s role will involve mobilising international organisations to protect the country’s natural habitat and threatened species, including the single-horned rhino, Asian tigers and many Himalayan birds.
World-leading cancer expert Professor Sir Alex Markham (Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine) has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Stirling in recognition of his outstanding contribution to medical science. The former head of Cancer Research UK is a pioneer of molecular genetics research.
Emeritus Professor of English literature John Barnard (School of English) has been elected as president of the Bibliographical Society from 2008 to 2010.
Dr Miles Tight (Institute for Transport Studies) has been made a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of his scholarly contributions and research council awards.
Research fellow Dr Yu Yan (School of Mechanical Engineering) has been awarded the Tribology Trust Bronze Medal 2008 by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers for his outstanding work on the wear and corrosion of artificial hip joints.
Visiting Professor John Latham (School of Earth and Environment), an internationally-acclaimed physicist, meteorologist and consultant to NASA, is the winner of this year’s High Sheriff’s Cheshire Prize for Literature. Professor Latham claimed the £2,000 prize for writing the children’s story Magnifying Glass, set in his birthplace of Frodsham, Cheshire.
Professor Peter Roberts from the Sustainability Research Institute (School of Earth and Environment) has been appointed to the newly formed Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), which came into operation on 1 December. Over the next three years, HCA will spend over £17 billion to deliver its responsibilities for housing, community development, regeneration and sustainable communities.
Professor Trudie Roberts, head of the School of Medicine and director of the Medical Education Unit, has been appointed as one of 12 medical members of the General Medical Council (GMC), which registers doctors to practise medicine in the UK.
Pro-Chancellor Linda Pollard has been appointed to the enterprise and skills strategic advisory committee of the Higher Education Funding Council for England for two years.
Professor Chris Peers and Dr Mark Dallas (Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health and Therapeutics) both received honours at the meeting of the International Society for Arterial Chemoreception. The former became president-elect, while the latter was awarded the society’s Young Scientist Prize.