Present-day pioneers follow in footsteps of giants

Professors Malcolm Horner and Geoffrey Gadd have been elected Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Professor Horner leads the University's Construction Management Research Unit (CMRU), part of the Grade 5A rated Division of Civil Engineering. He has successfully executed research projects to a value of some £5m, attracting funding from research councils and from industry in roughly equal measure. Professor Horner is Chairman of Whole Life Consultants Ltd, a University spin out company set up to commercialise his research, Chairman of Scottish Enterprise Tayside, and Chairman of the Management Board of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Scotland.

Professor Horner has also been honoured by the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) and was recently appointed as the inaugural Chair of the Scottish Regional Management Board. As Chair of the ICE Board, he will represent the professional interests of 8000 civil engineers throughout Scotland.

Professor Geoff Gadd is Head of the Division of Environmental and Applied Biology in the College of Life Sciences. He is an international leader in the field of metals and micro organisms and is considered a world pioneer of the new field of geomicrobiology. Professor Gadd has just finished a three-year term as President of the British Mycological Society. He is also an elected Fellow of the Linnean Society, the Institute of Biology and the American Academy of Microbiology; and has received several other honours for his research.

A feature on Professor Gadd's research into the potentials of fungi for treating land contaminated with heavy metals appears on page xx of the current issue of Contact.