In the present climate... when knowledge itself is too often derided, let us say this: there stands before us a man of impeccable political neutrality, of intellectual rigour, of the soundest judgement, to whom, for his many services to the State, we now give particular thanks.
- Citation for Adair, Baron Turner of Echinswell, awarded the title of the degree of Doctor of Law, honoris causa.
Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Echiswell, received the degree of Doctor of Law for his services to the State. The businessman, academic and former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority was described in the Oration as “the answer to every crisis in public policy”. An alum of Gonville & Caius College, Lord Turner is currently Chairman of the board of Governors at the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Presenting him for his Honorary Degree, the Orator said: “In the present climate…. when knowledge itself is too often derided let us say this: there stands before us a man of impeccable political neutrality, of intellectual rigour, of the soundest judgement, to whom, for his many services to the State, we now give particular thanks.”
Also recognised with a Doctor of Law degree for his services to the State was Professor Sir Malcolm Grant, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge. Professor Grant, who was Provost and President of University College London, was appointed the founding chairman of NHS England, with responsibility for investing the budget of the NHS in England and for its operational performance –a role to which he was recently re-appointed.
Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, Professor of Supramolecular Chemistry at the Collège de France, was awarded the title of Doctor of Science. In 1987, Professor Lehn won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Donald Cram and Charles Pederson for their innovative work on synthesising cryptands, the molecules that bind atoms together.
Formerly a postdoctoral fellow at Jesus College, Professor Eric Maskin received the degree of Doctor of Science for his contributions to game theory, contract theory, and social choice theory. Currently the Adams University Professor at Harvard University, in 2007 he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory –the field in economics and game theory that takes an engineering approach to designing economic mechanisms or incentives. “Other economists study what happens when certain rules have been established in some business or other,” his citation reads; “he engineers the rules which will produce the desired outcomes.”
Also awarded the degree of Doctor of Science was Professor Janet Rossant, an alumna and Honorary Fellow of Darwin College, whose research has helped to uncover the cellular and molecular events that control early-stage embryo development in mice, with implications for stem cell biology and understanding developmental disorders. A contributor to ethical and policy debates around stem cell research, she is currently a Senior Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto.
“She has taken cells from the placenta,” reads Professor Rossant’s citation, “and restored to them the miraculous, protean power of transformation by which they can grow into any tissue—bone, say, or muscle, or white marrow; and so she has opened up a new source of stem cells, which can be exploited without harm to the embryo.”
Dame Stephanie Shirley, awarded the title of Doctor of Science, arrived in Britain on a Kindertransport at the age of five, an exile from Vienna fleeing the Nazi terror. An Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College, she is an information technologist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, who throughout her career has pioneered opportunities for the education and professional development of women and girls. In later years she has also developed a major philanthropic role through the Shirley Foundation, particularly supporting autism research and emerging technology. “I do it because of my personal history,” she has said. “I need to justify the fact that my life was saved. Now it is my turn to help others.”
Computer scientists and software engineer Sophie Wilson was made Doctor of Science. After studying mathematics and computer science at Selwyn College, of which she is an Honorary Fellow, she went on to make significant contributions to computer development, including one of the first Acorn microcomputers and, later, the BBC Micro. “There are now four of the chips that she designed for every human being on earth,” the citation reads. “Let us greet, therefore, a woman who helped to plant an acorn and pave a fen with silicon.”
Professor Manuel Castells, a Spanish sociologist and Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, was awarded the title of Doctor of Arts. Best known for his trilogy of books about the information society, published under the title The Information Age, he currently holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. “Llike the astronomer who looks up at the night sky and ponders the heavens,” reads Professor Castell's citation, “all the world is made his observatory and his laboratory. And he steers clear of ‘the dubious ventures of futurology’; it is enough, he says, if what he has written relates to our experience.”
Read biographies of all the recipients
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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