Members of the media wishing to attend any of the ceremonies should contact the Communications Office, on 01224 272014 to arrange.
Thursday 26 November at 11.00am
Professor Richard Dawkins FRS
Lately Charles Simonyi Professor for the Understanding of Science, University of Oxford
Professor Richard Dawkins, an eminent biologist and gifted writer and broadcaster, is widely recognised for his popularisation of Darwinian ideas as well as for original thinking on evolutionary theory. A Fellow of New College, Oxford, and the former Charles Simonyi Professor for the Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001. He is the author of numerous best-selling books including The Selfish Gene, published in 1976 and The Greatest Show on Earth published in 2009. As an ethologist, with a principal interest in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he has popularised the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution. A talented and determined communicator in science to the general public, his television programme, The Genius of Charles Darwin, won Best Documentary Series at the British Broadcast Awards in 2008. A champion of science and scientific method, Professor Dawkins is an ardent atheist, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.
Thursday 26 November at 3.00pm
William Edgar CBE
Chairman, National Subsea Research Institute, European Marine Energy Centre, and Subsea UK
Bill Edgar is a respected figure in the Subsea and Offshore Oil and Gas Sector, an industry he has served for over thirty five years. He is Chairman of Subsea UK, the European Marine Energy Centre, and the National Subsea Research Institute. He is also a Director of Online Electronics Ltd and was previously Group Director for Engineering and Production Facilities for the John Wood Group PLC and Chief Executive of the National Engineering Laboratory. He is also a past Chairman of the Offshore Construction Association. An honours graduate in Engineering from Strathclyde and Birmingham Universities, Mr Edgar is a Chartered Engineer. He has been awarded Fellowships by the Institution of Mechanical Engineering, The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is also a past President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineering and is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.
Friday 27 November at 3.00pm
Dr John Purser
Composer, poet, playwright, musicologist, broadcaster and writer
John Purser is a prominent Scottish composer, musicologist and broadcaster. He is also a writer, poet and playwright. His acclaimed book, Scotland's Music, published in 2007, encompasses traditional, classical, and popular music placing them in their historical contexts. It is an all-embracing account of the history of music and musicians in Scotland stretching from the Stone Age to the present day. He also researched, wrote and presented BBC Radio Scotland’s Scotland's Music - a Radio History. Dr Purser, who has been creating award-winning radio since the 1970s, was presented with the ‘Services to Industry Award’ for this programme at the 2007 Scots Trad Music Awards. His plays include the radio play Carver - about Robert Carver, the 16th century Scottish composer of church music. John Purser also initiated the reconstruction which commenced in 1991 of the Iron Age Deskford Carnyx, producing a replica which was first played in 1993 by trombonist John Kenny. He has also recently published a critical biography of the Scottish composer Erik Chisholm. Dr Purser currently teaches the History of Gaelic Music at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College on Skye, where he is a Research Fellow.
Laurie Taylor
Broadcaster, journalist, author and sociologist
Laurie Taylor is a sociologist by discipline and formerly held a chair at the University of York. He is currently more readily recognised as an author, journalist, radio and television writer and broadcaster, and as a public speaker. For over two decades Laurie Taylor has been heard on BBC Radio 4 in such programmes as Stop the Week, The Radio Programme, News Quiz, Speaking as an Expert, Afternoon Shift, Room for Improvement, and Thinking Allowed, a programme devoted to society and social change. He has also made several major television documentaries on such topics as crime, drinking behaviour, and the purpose of education, the meaning of celebrity and the inadequacies of palliative care in the United Kingdom. The author of fourteen books on motivation, change, communication, and personal identity, Laurie Taylor is also a regular contributor to the New Statesman, The Independent, and The Times. His weekly satirical column on university life has been appearing in the Times Higher for the last 30 years. He is also an editor of the magazine New Humanist and chair of the British Rationalist Association.
- Issued by
-
The Communications Team
Directorate of External Relations,
University of Aberdeen,
King's College,
Aberdeen
- Contact
- Jennifer Phillips
- Issued on
- 23 November 2009
