8 June 2006
University of Dundee honorary degrees
A pair of Nobel Laureates head the list of honorary graduands at the University of Dundee's summer graduation ceremonies.
The Nobel Laureates being honoured are Professor Sydney Brenner and Professor Zhores Alferov. Professor Brenner, a pioneer of genetic engineering, was the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. Professor Alferov, Scientific Director of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000.
The University is also celebrating its strong links with its home city at the graduation ceremonies with prominent local figures being awarded honorary degrees.
Mr Iain Ovens OBE, Principal of Dundee College, Mr Andrew Thomson, chairman of the Dundee-based publishers D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd., and the renowned traditional singer Sheena Wellington will all be honoured, as will Dr Christopher Lipinski, a Dundee-born scientist who authored the groundbreaking "Rule of Five", which has revolutionised the drug discovery process worldwide.
World leaders in fields as diverse as nursing, animation, engineering and life sciences will also have their achievements recognised. They are:
* Dr Suzanne Lacasse, Managing Director of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute.
* Jimmy Murakami - artist and animation director/producer who played a key role in two of the most important animated features made in the UK, 'The Snowman' and 'When the Wind Blows'. Dundee Contemporary Arts will host a retrospective of Murakami's work to coincide with the award of his honorary degree.
* Mrs Sybill Storz, chairman of the world-leading medical technologies company Karl Storz GmbH & Co.
* Dr Catherine Hamlin, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for the incredible work she and her late husband have done in providing free reconstructive surgery to thousands of young African girls and women suffering from fistulas - a severe condition suffered during obstructive labour in childbirth.
The graduation ceremonies this year take place in the Caird Hall on Thursday June 22nd, Friday June 23rd and Tuesday July 11th. They will be presided over by the University's new Chancellor, Lord Patel of Dunkeld, who was installed in a ceremony in the Marryat Hall last week.
Two of the honorary graduands, Sheena Wellington and Dr Catherine Hamlin, are the personal choices of Lord Patel.
NOTES TO EDITORS
GRADUATION CEREMONIES:
THURSDAY JUNE 22ND
10 am - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences & Faculty of Education and Social Work. Honorary degree to Iain Ovens.
2 pm - Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, and Duncan of Jordanstone College. Honorary degrees to Professor Zhores Alferov, Dr Suzanne Lacasse and Jimmy Murakami.
FRIDAY JUNE 23RD
10 am - Faculty of Life Sciences and Faculty of Law and Accountancy. Honorary degrees to Professor Sydney Brenner and Dr Christopher Lipinski.
2 pm - School of Nursing. Honorary degree to Sheena Wellington
TUESDAY JULY 11TH
2 pm - School of Dentistry and School of Medicine. Honorary Degrees to Sybill Storz, Andrew Thomson and Dr Catherine Hamlin.
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS.
1. Iain Ovens OBE has been Principal of Dundee College since August 1996 and was Principal of Angus College for three and a half years previously. Under his principalship Dundee College has steadily raised its reputation and recently achieved a second outstanding report by HM inspectors for the quality of its operation and his effective leadership.
Mr Ovens is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde and worked in the electricity industry before becoming a college lecturer. Much of his career has been devoted to designing and delivering customised training for companies and in the public sector. He has been active in curriculum development throughout his career and has led a number of national further education projects including the development of occupational standards for lecturers and a Total Quality Management project that involved most colleges in Scotland.
In 2002 he was awarded an OBE for his services to further education. In 2003 his service to tertiary education was further recognised when he was made a Fellow of the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
2. Professor Zhores I. Alferov was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000. He has been a member of the Scientific staff of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1953. He became Director of the Institute in 1987 and then Scientific Director in May, 2003. Since 1962 he has been working in the area of III-V semiconductor heterostructures. His outstanding contributions to physics and technology of III-V semiconductor heterostructures, especially injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LED's, and epitaxy processes have led to the creation of modern Heterostructure Physics and Electronics.
3. Dr Suzanne Lacasse has been the Managing Director of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, one of the leading institutions of its kind, since 1991.
Born and raised in the small town of Noranda in Québec, Canada, her father was a construction engineer and her mother, a homemaker. Being a gifted student, Dr. Lacasse was able to skip several grades in the local public school system and graduated from high school at the age of 14. She attended the local Collége de Rouyn, Université de Montréal and graduated in 1967 with the highest distinction. Dr. Lacasse continued her education by studying Civil Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Lacasse speaks English, French, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch and she has worked in Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Dr. Lacasse also has consulting experiences in several other countries and has over a hundred and fifty contributions to professional journals and conferences.
4. Jimmy Teru Murakami is an artist and animation director/producer who has made an exceptional contribution to the film and television industry. He is internationally recognised as one of the founding fathers of animation. Over five decades, he has worked in California, New York, Japan, France, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Ireland. Murakami's short films have been acclaimed round the world, while he made his feature directing debut with 'When the Wind Blows' (1985).
He won a BAFTA award in 1964 for Best Animated Film for "Insects" and in 1968 he was nominated for an Oscar for his short film, 'The Magic Pear Tree'.
He was supervising director on the BBC Film 'The Snowman' and directed the British feature 'When the Wind Blows' both written by Raymond Briggs. Last year The Animation Guild awarded Jimmy their "Golden award" as a veteran of the animation industry. The award is given to key artists who have contributed to the highest standards of animation production and is one of the most respected accolades to be presented from the industry.
5. Professor Sydney Brenner, the South African scientist, is one of the pioneers of genetic engineering and an icon of science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 in physiology or medicine along with another University of Dundee honorary graduate, Sir John Sulston, for his work on a specific model organism, the tiny worm C. elegans Professor Brenner was born in Germiston, near Johannesburg, and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and in the UK at Oxford. From 1957 he researched in the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the Medical Research Council, Cambridge, and in 1980 was appointed its director.
In 1960 Professor Brenner discovered messenger RNA (a link between DNA and the ribosomes in which proteins are synthesized). For these discoveries in 1971, Brenner received the Lasker Award, sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels," in Basic Medical Research.
Professor Brenner then became engaged in one of the most elaborate efforts in anatomy ever attempted: investigating the nervous system of nematode worms and comparing the nervous systems of different mutant forms of the animal. About 100 genes are involved in constructing the nervous system of a nematode and most of the mutations that occur affect the overall design of a section of the nervous system. Professor Brenner's decision to work on what he calls "the worm" has had a profound influence on molecular biology. His research on C. elegans led the way toward the first genetic mapping of a multicellular organism and contributed in significant ways to the development of the Human Genome Project. Through his focus on the worm, Professor Brenner set the stage for the understanding of apoptosis, or cell suicide, and his ground breaking work on C. elegans has had implications for understanding a range of diseases, including cancer, AIDS, strokes, and neurodegenerative diseases.
37 years after he identified the right organism, more than 3,000 scientists across the world are studying C. elegans as a model, and their collective work is contributing to new knowledge about the process of aging and the growth of cancer. Professor Brenner's work has led to a global industry related to the worm.
Professor Brenner has commented that he is still at the age of 76, excited by scientific research and the prospect of what can be done in biology.
6. Dundee-born Dr Christopher Lipinski is the author of the groundbreaking "Rule of Five" that has revolutionised the drug discovery process worldwide.
Since its publication in 1997, the Lipinski Rule of Five - a simple algorithm that helps identify successful drug candidates - has been a critical filter for drug development programs.
Dr Lipinski was recently recognised by the American Chemical Society with the award of their prestigious E. B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances.
Dr Lipinski is a member of the TB Alliance Scientific Advisory Committee and a retired Senior Research Fellow with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Over the course of his distinguished career he has authored over 190 publications and invited presentations, and has issued 17 US patents.
7. Born in Dundee to a family of singers and weavers Sheena Wellington is one of Scotland's leading singer/songwriters. Her acclaimed career began at the precociously early age of two when she made her first stage appearance at a singing competition.
Since then she has built an impressive musical repertoire and become a much sought after lecturer, writer and traditional arts consultant. She has toured widely and her recordings have gained international, artistic and popular acclaim.
She is perhaps best known for her powerful rendition of Burns' "A Man's A Man For 'A That" at the opening ceremony of the first Scottish Parliament for almost three hundred years in July 1999. Her moving performance was hailed by many as the highlight of an historic day.
She is also a passionate and articulate campaigner for traditional Scottish music and has played a significant role in the fight for greater recognition and funding for Scottish arts and culture.
Sheena Wellington has fulfilled a range of arts and culture posts within Scotland including as a member of the Scottish Parliament's Culture Commission, the Scottish Arts Council Music Committee and the SAC's Arts Education Forum.
8. Mrs Sybill Storz is the chairman of Karl Storz GmbH & Co. She has been a keen supporter of training and education in endoscopic surgery worldwide, and especially to the University of Dundee. Under her stewardship, Karl Storz GmbH has grown to be a market leader with large factories in Germany and USA. The company also has a research and development facility within the grounds of Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and has worked closely with the Cuschieri Skills Centre at the University Medical School.
9. Mr Andrew Thomson was born in Dundee and educated at Churchill College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in modern languages. He became chairman of the Dundee-based publishing group D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd in 2005. He is only the fourth chairman of the company in its 101-year history. Andrew joined the family firm in 1964 and has been a director since 1974. He has been closely involved in the day-to-day running of the firm throughout that time and has also taken a keen interest in local affairs.
10. Dr Catherine Hamlin. It is estimated that throughout the world, one woman in every twenty will have difficulty in childbirth. In the 19th Century, the death of both mother and child was not uncommon.
Modern medical care and treatment, with easy access to Hospitals and doctors, has eliminated this threat in our western civilisation. But this is not so in developing countries where the joy of parenthood is frequently marred in the aftermath of obstructed labour, when a serious condition known as a fistula can occur. This can result in severe physical pain and other effects which can lead to social shame in some countries.
In 1958, two Australian doctors Reg and Catherine Hamlin, went to Ethiopia to train midwives. Seeing the plight of these poor women, they became determined to help them.
They developed a delicate surgical technique that, in most cases, will result in a complete cure. Then they built the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. Since then more than 24,000 women have been treated and cured. The Hospital now trains doctors from other developing countries. The effect of their work is spreading world-wide, restoring new life and dignity to thousands of young women.
For more information contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate
Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
| 
