Prestigious Award for UC Alumnus

university-of-canterbury

Fri Jun 29 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Prestigious Award for UC Alumnus

Friday, 29 June 2007, 5:01 pm
Press Release: University of Canterbury

University of Canterbury alumnus and distinguished chemist Professor Robin Clark has been awarded the Bakerian Lecture and Medal of the Royal Society of London for 2008.

The Bakerian Lecture is the Royal Society's premier annual lecture in the physical sciences and dates back to 1775. Previous awardees have included Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell and, since 1901 when Nobel Prizes were inaugurated, 26 Nobel Laureates.

The only other New Zealander to be awarded the Bakerian Lecture and Medal was Ernest Rutherford in 1920, also a Canterbury alumnus.

"I am of course absolutely delighted with this news but rather daunted by the illustrious names on the list of previous awardees, going back to 1775," said Professor Clark.

"This is really two up for the University of Canterbury. It is also two up for Marlborough where it happens that both Rutherford and I were at primary school, he in Havelock and I, 36 miles away, in Blenheim."

Professor Clark graduated from Canterbury with a BSc in 1956 and an MSc(Hons) in chemistry in 1958. He is currently Sir William Ramsay Professor of Chemistry at University College London.

It is the latest in a string of honours for Professor Clark. In 2001 Canterbury University awarded Professor Clark an honorary DSc for services to science and in 2004 he received a special Lifetime Achievement Award at the New Zealander of the Year Awards in Britain.

Professor Clark is Chairman of the University of Canterbury's Charitable Trust in the UK.

ENDS

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