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Honours given to physicists

Heather Pinnell

19 June 2007

A number of members of the Institute have received awards in the Queen's Birthday Honours announced in June. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, visiting professor of astrophysics at Oxford University has been made a dame. She was awarded the honour for services to science.

Bell Burnell discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis adviser Anthony Hewish at Cambridge. She later became professor of physics at the Open University, a visiting professor at Princeton University in the USA and dean of science at the University of Bath. Bell Burnell has won several prestigious medals and prizes and is a fellow of the Royal Society. She has also been president of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Prof. David Melville, vice-chancellor of Kent University and a former physicist, has been knighted for services to further and higher education. Heather Couper, a prominent broadcaster and astronomer and a Millennium Commissioner, has been awarded the CBE for services to science. The CBE was also given to former physicist Geoffrey Copland, who is vice-chancellor of the University of Westminster, for services to higher education.

The OBE was awarded to Nigel Mason, professor of physics at the Open University, for services to science, and to Prof. Rodney Kimber, director of science and engineering at the Transport Research Foundation, for services to road transport.

The MBE was awarded to Ann Marks for services to physics. Ann is a physics education consultant, and an IOP Council member. She is a former chair of the Institute's Women in Physics Group and continues to serve on the Group's committee as a co-opted member. An MBE also went to Prof. Mark Bailey, director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, for services to astronomy, and to Thomas Balanowski, teacher and winner of a Teaching Award from the Institute, for services to education in West Lothian.

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