University awards four honorary degrees
Posted on 13 January 2012
Dr Thomas Brewer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, Sir Mark Walport and Lyse Doucet will be awarded honorary doctorates at the University’s graduation ceremonies on 20 and 21 January.
The University confers honorary degrees on individuals who have made a significant contribution to society. Recipients often have existing links with the University and are chosen from nominations made by its members.
Dr Thomas Brewer
Dr Thomas Brewer is Deputy Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Infectious Diseases Program. As Strategic Program Team Head for Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases, Global Health, he is committed to reducing childhood illness and death. From 2003 to 2008, he was the Foundation’s Senior Program Officer in the Infectious Diseases Program. In this role, he supported the University of York’s proposal to improve the supply of a key anti-malarial drug through molecular breeding of the plant Artemisia annua, resulting in the University receiving major grant support for this research.
Dr Brewer qualified as a clinician from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in 1974, before joining the United States Army. He has had numerous overseas assignments, working in Korea and research laboratories in Egypt, Kenya and Brazil. From 1995 to 2000, he was Commander and Scientific Director of the Army’s largest overseas laboratory in Bangkok, managing an interdisciplinary laboratory and clinical research development program throughout eight South Asian countries. He became Director for Medical Research in 2000 with responsibility for core funding for the US Army in infectious diseases, combat casualty care and military operational medicine. In 2001 he was also appointed Chair of the Joint Technology Committee for Infectious Diseases (Army, Navy and Air Force).
Professor Dame Sally Davies
Professor Dame Sally Davies is the Chief Medical Officer for England and also advises the UK Government. She holds responsibility for Research and Development, and is the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health. As Director General she developed the Government strategy for health and social care research and is now responsible for the National Institute for Health Research.
She is a Board member of the Office of the Co-ordination of Health Research, chairs the UK Clinical Research Collaboration and is a member of the UK Health Innovation Council. She led the UK delegation to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Ministerial Summit in November 2004, spoke on research and development at the World Health Assembly in May 2005, is a member of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Health Research and chaired the Expert Advisory Committee for the development of the WHO research strategy. She is a member of the International Advisory Committee for A*STAR, Singapore and the Caribbean Health Research Council Board.
Lyse Doucet
Lyse Doucet is a Senior
Presenter and Correspondent for BBC World News TV and BBC World Service radio who is
often deployed to anchor special news coverage from the field and interview
world leaders. She also reports across the BBC including for BBC Newsnight.
Ms Doucet played a key role in the BBC’s coverage of the ‘Arab Spring’ across the Middle East and North Africa. She is a regular visitor to Afghanistan and Pakistan from where she has been reporting for the past two decades. Her work has also focused on major natural disasters including the Indian Ocean tsunami, and more recently the Pakistan floods. Before joining the BBC’s team of presenters in 1999, Ms Doucet spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent with postings in Jerusalem, Amman, Kabul, Islamabad, Tehran and Abidjan.
She was nominated for two Emmy awards in the United States last year. Her most recent awards include a Peabody and David Bloom Award for her television films from Afghanistan, and Radio News Journalist of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in the UK. Born in eastern Canada, Ms Doucet is a Council Member of the International Council on Human Rights policy, an honorary patron of Canadian Crossroads International, and a member of Friends of Aschiana UK which supports working street children in Afghanistan.
Sir Mark Walport FRS FMedSci
Mark Walport is Director of the Wellcome Trust, which is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in health by supporting the brightest minds. Before joining the Trust he was Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London. He has been a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology since 2004. He is also a member of the India UK CEO Forum, the UK India Round Table and the advisory board of Infrastructure UK and a non-executive member of the Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health Research. He is a member of a number of international advisory bodies.
Sir Mark has undertaken independent reviews for the UK Government on the use and sharing of personal information in the public and private sectors: Data Sharing Review (2009), and secondary education: Science and Mathematics: Secondary Education for the 21st Century (2010). He received a knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours List for services to medical research and was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011.
Notes to editors:
- Sir Mark Walport will be presented for his honorary degree by Professor Deborah Smith from the Department of Biology in Ceremony One on 20 January at 9.30am.
- Professor Dame Sally Davies will be presented for her honorary degree by Professor Hilary Graham from the Department of Health Sciences in Ceremony Two on 20 January at 12 noon.
- Dr Thomas Brewer will be presented for his honorary degree by Professor Dianna Bowles from the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, Department of Biology in Ceremony Three on 20 January at 3.30pm.
- Lyse Doucet will be presented for her honorary degree by Professor John Local, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research in Ceremony Five on 21 January at 12 noon.
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