News

Durham awards honorary degrees to celebrate world-class physics

(15 November 2002)

A former student and a former professor of astronomy at the University of Durham are back in their old surroundings in the Physics Department to be honoured for their help in raising the quality of scientific research and education.

Each has been awarded an honorary doctorate at a special ceremony in the new Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics, a £20 million science complex officially opened last month by the Prime Minister Tony Blair. It combines world-class research into the building blocks of the universe and a project to inspire a new generation of young scientists.

The former student is Dr Peter Ogden, who gained his BSc and PhD degrees in physics at Durham at the end of the 1960s and later set up a successful business, Computacenter, one of Europe's leading IT infrastructure companies, and the Ogden Trust, which supports a wide range of education projects. He becomes an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law.

At the same ceremony Professor Richard Ellis FRS was made an Honorary Doctor of Science. He was Professor of Astronomy at Durham 1985-93, later at Cambridge, and now at the California Institute of Technology, where he is Director, Caltech Optical Observatories (formerly Palomar) and Steele Professor of Astronomy.

Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman, who conferred the two degrees, said: "Durham has become a world premier-class centre for Physics over the past two decades and the addition of the new Ogden Centre re-inforces that position. We are holding our special degree ceremony in the new Centre to celebrate its opening and to recognise the involvement and support of Professor Richard Ellis and Dr Peter Ogden in advancing that work."

Celebrations also included special lectures on astronomy by Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, and on particle physics by Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith. (PR1061)