Imperial College London bestows honours at Commemoration Day ceremony

Imperial celebrates the success of 1,800 graduands - News

For immediate use
Wednesday 25 October 2006

Distinguished figures from the worlds of science and medicine are recognised today by Imperial College London at its annual Commemoration Day ceremony in the Royal Albert Hall.

Admitted to the Fellowship of the College, the highest honour Imperial can bestow, is Sir Brian Bender, Permanent Secretary to the Department of Trade and Industry. He becomes the 355th Imperial Fellow since the honour was established in 1932, joining a host of renowned scientists including Nobel Prize winner and founder of holography Dennis Gabor, medical ethicist Baroness Warnock and inventor and entrepreneur Sir Clive Sinclair.

The ceremony, which celebrates the graduation of over 1,800 Imperial undergraduates, also includes the award of honorary degrees to Lady Helen Hamlyn, Trustee of the Helen Hamlyn Trust, and Professor Michel Kazatchkine of the University Rene Descartes, Paris, a key figure in the international fight against HIV and AIDS.

In addition, members of the College community are recognised for their contributions and achievements, with Associateships of Imperial College conferred on Deputy Academic Registrar Nigel Wheatley and Anthony Rippon, Academic Laboratory Manager in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Medicine.

Congratulating the assembled graduands and guests, Imperial's Rector Sir Richard Sykes  said:

"Our job, on this side of the stage, is to provide an education and training to the very highest level, to turn out not just people with degrees but the next generation of leaders – people who will have an impact across society and across the world.

"The big problems that we face in the world today – whether they be infectious diseases, climate change, the provision of clean energy – these will only be solved by scientists, engineers and doctors. To me the opportunities for young people are immense. You who graduate today have some of the most interesting jobs on the planet to go to."

Today's Commemoration Day ceremony is Imperial's last as a member of the University of London, following the University's acceptance earlier this month of the College's formal request to withdraw. Imperial expects to be fully independent in July 2007, with the first undergraduates to enrol for an Imperial College degree registering in 2008.

For further information contact:

Abigail Smith
Imperial College London Press Office
Tel: 020 7594 6701
Email: abigail.smith@imperial.ac.uk

Notes to editors

Sir Brian Bender

Sir Brian Bender has recently been appointed Permanent Secretary to the Department of Trade and Industry.

He joined the DTI in 1973, and was seconded in 1977 to the Office of the UK Permanent Representative to the European Community as First Secretary (trade policy) and then as Counsellor (industry and energy).

From 1990-93 he was deputy head of the European Secretariat at the Cabinet Office, and from 1993-94 he was head of the Regional Development Division at the DTI. From 1994-98 he headed up the European Secretariat at the Cabinet Office. He was also a key member of the Prime Minister's team for a number of EU Summits.

From December 1998 he was head of Public Service Delivery in the Cabinet Office, leading work on the Modernising Government White Paper and became Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office in April 1999. He was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in June 2000, and became Permanent Secretary at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when the department was created in June 2001. He has also played a role in the Professional Skills for Government agenda as the head of profession for policy delivery.

Lady Helen Hamlyn

Lady Hamlyn graduated from the Royal College of Art and began a career as a Designer for Cresta Silks. After her marriage in 1970 to Paul Hamlyn, publisher and philanthropist, she turned her love of art and design to the restoration of historically important buildings and homes. Lady Hamlyn was honoured by the French government as Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres for her restoration of the thirteenth-century Chateau de Bagnols in France.

Paul Hamlyn’s establishment of The Helen Hamlyn Foundation (HHF) focused on design for older people and methods to improve their quality of life. The Foundation had a research centre at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, under Imperial's Professor Brian Jarman.

In 1991, through HHF, DesignAge was established at the Royal College of Art with the brief to explore the design implications of ageing populations' which in 1995 won one of the first Queen's Awards for Higher and Further Education. In 1999, The Helen Hamlyn Research Centre was established at the Royal College of Art. As a consequence of her work with the HHF, Lady Hamlyn was awarded the Royal Society of Arts Bi-Centenary Medal in 2002 and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Following Paul Hamlyn's death, The Helen Hamlyn Trust was established. As Chairman of this Trust, Lady Hamlyn initiates medium and long-term projects in the fields of medicine, the arts and culture and heritage and conservation in India. Her innovative sponsorship of collaborative links with the College has involved work with Professor Brian Jarman and more recently with the development of the robotically enhanced operating theatre and support for the appointment of Professor Sir Ara Darzi to the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery based between St Mary’s Hospital and the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Professor Michel Kazatchkine

Professor Michel Kazatchkine is a clinical immunologist with a distinguished academic career in research and administration, who has spent the past 20 years fighting AIDS as a physician, researcher and policymaker. Professor Kazatchkine attended medical school at Necker-Enfants-Malades in Paris, studied immunology at the Pasteur Institute, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London and Harvard Medical School.

In 1985 he established a clinic specialising in AIDS which now treats over 1,600 people, and three years later opened the first night clinic for people infected with HIV, to make it possible for them to get confidential treatment outside working hours. Since 1998, Professor Kazatchkine has directed the French National Research Agency, the world’s second largest AIDS research program. During that time, the Agency has shifted much of its focus to Africa and the developing world, including pioneering clinical trials of antiretroviral regimens, and of preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission.

Professor Kazatchkine has worked to ensure international efforts to fight AIDS meet the highest scientific standards. Since 2004, he has also served as Chair of the World Health Organisation’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on HIV/AIDS. He is currently France’s global HIV/AIDS ambassa dor.

Professor Kazatchkine continues to direct the research agenda across the European Union, and still collaborates with researchers on the S t Mary's c ampus of Imperial College London. He is an outstanding European clinical-scientist on a global stage.

Anthony Rippon

Anthony Rippon obtained his HNC in Chemistry in 1961 and has worked in academic biochemical laboratory research throughout his career, developing skills in steroid biochemistry which have been important in the research units where he has worked, and in particular since 1965 at St Mary's Hospital Medical School and subsequently Imperial College London.

He was both technical head of the Steroid Research Unit and in technical charge of the Supra-Regional Assay Service for Steroids, which was established in St Mary’s at that time. Much of the work arising from this period of his career has been seminal and resulted in a series of definitive publications which are still quoted.

In 1974 his role expanded as the Steroid Research Unit merged with the Academic Department of Chemical Pathology. He then became the Chairman of the Medical School Laboratory Managers Committee and represented technical staff on the Medical School’s Safety Committee.

He has contributed hugely to the success of the academic groups with which he has been associated; these have included the Steroid Research Unit, Department of Chemical Pathology and in his later years, Department of Clinical Endocrinology and the Division of Medicine.

Nigel Wheatley

After working at the central offices of the University of London he joined Imperial College in 1980 as Senior Assistant Registrar running the Higher Degrees section and was promoted to Deputy Academic Registrar in 1991, assuming overall responsibility for Student Records and Higher Degrees.

Since organising and participating in the College’s first informal student recruitment visit in 1983 to Indonesia, he has organised and participated in more formal student recruitment visits to Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey which has contributed to increasing the international student population at Imperial.

One of the major projects he has worked on over recent years is the creation and development of the Student Online Evaluation (SOLE) survey which invites undergraduate students to give feedback electronically on the modules they have followed and on the lecturers who taught those modules. SOLE has enabled students to make an important contribution towards improving the quality of teaching across the College.

Nigel has assisted with the creation of the College’s two Graduate Schools, the Graduate School of Life Sciences and Medicine which was formed in 1999 and the Graduate School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, formed in 2002, which he continues to oversee through two Assistant Registrars.

He has officiated at nearly all graduation ceremonies since 1981, usually on the opposite side of the stage.

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