New Year honours for York’s Vice-Chancellor and two leading academics
Posted on 29 December 2012
And he is joined as a CBE by York academic Professor Sue Mendus, a Morrell Professor Emerita of Political Philosophy in the Department of Politics. Professor Sarah Thompson, Head of the Department of Physics, has become a Member of the British Empire (MBE).
The honours come as the University starts a year of celebrations in 2013 to mark its 50th anniversary.
I am enormously proud to receive this honour as we enter our 50th year.
Professor Brian Cantor
Professor Cantor, who earlier this year announced his intention to step down at the end of 2013 to return to scientific research, has been Vice-Chancellor at York since October, 2002.
At York, Professor Cantor has led the University through its most dynamic period of growth which has included the major campus expansion at Heslington East, and York's recognition on the world stage, including being ranked in the Top 10 of young universities worldwide.
"I am enormously proud to receive this honour as we enter our 50th year. I do so on behalf the staff, students and friends and supporters of the University who have helped to make York such a success story in higher education," he said.
Before coming to York, Professor Cantor was Head of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at Oxford University. During 20 years at Oxford, he also headed the Department of Materials. Previously he taught at Sussex University for nine years.
A Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, he is acknowledged as a world authority on materials manufacturing and his research has contributed to fundamental scientific advances as well as improvements in many industrial products.
Professor Cantor was also a founder and Academic Director of Oxford University's Begbroke Business and Science Park, an integrated research and development facility.
Professor Mendus’s honour is for services to Political Science. She has published widely on topics in modern and historical political philosophy, with a special emphasis on the concept of toleration. In 2004 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, and from 2008 to 2012 she was Vice President (Social Sciences) of the Academy. She is a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Professor Thompson, who became Head of the Department of Physics in 2011, is honoured for services to Higher Education. Her main research interests lie in magnetic thin films and multilayers, spin-dependent transport, spintronics, remote sensing of magnetoresistance and infra-red spectroscopy of magnetic thin films and multilayers.
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