Vice-Chancellor honoured

The Vice-Chancellor was elected to Membership of the Royal Irish Academy. The Royal Irish Academy was founded in 1785 by a royal charter of George III.

Its aims, to encourage scholarship in all the main branches of knowledge and enquiry, remain the same today as they were then. As is the Academy’s commitment “to serve the interests of the whole island of Ireland”.

The Academy is at the centre of Irish educational life, through its national committees, diverse research interests and projects, extensive library with its unique collection of manuscripts and important publications. It helps to coordinate scholarship on a cross-institutional, interdisciplinary, national and international basis.

Citation
The citation published by the Academy on the occasion his election refers to the Vice-Chancellor as “a distinguished biologist with research interests in DNA Repair and Mutagenesis”. It states that he has made important contributions to the development of strategic academic planning within Northern Ireland and also the rest of the United Kingdom. The citation praises the Vice-Chancellor’s leadership of a multi-campus institution, which “together with an extensive outreach partnership, aims to make education accessible to all”.

The Vice-Chancellor was also awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Law by the NUI Maynooth Chancellor at Dublin Castle.

A musical fellow
Dr Desmond Hunter, Senior Lecturer in Music, was honoured with a £50,000 award under the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme. He received his award at a ceremony held in London, attended by the cream of British academia’s music educators. Dr Hunter was one of only 20 academics in the UK to be awarded the Fellowship in this the first year of the scheme.

Top tourism award
Lyn Fawcett, senior lecturer in Hospitality and Tourism Management was presented with the prestigious Professional of the Year award at the glittering HCIMA Janus Awards ceremony – the hospitality and tourism industry’s “Oscars”.

Peace Psychology
Professor Ed Cairns was elected incoming President of the American Psychological Society, Division of Peace Psychology, becoming the first person from the UK to hold this title.

Woodrow Wilson School
Professor Ni Aolain was appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.

Nursing success
Dr Vidar Melby received a Florence Nightingale Fellowship to carry out research in Norway and Sweden. Dr Marion Wright was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship to work with colleagues in the US on aspects of nutrition in nursing research. Dr Owen Barr received the first All Ireland Nursing Research Fellowship from the Health Research Board in Dublin.

Advisor of the year
Peter Martin of The Management Institute was shortlisted for the Arthur Anderson Advisor of the Year Award. This national award scheme seeks to identify the outstanding business volunteers who have worked with an arts organisation to complete a strategic project and only three business advisors from the UK have been shortlisted.

Social Science honours
Dr Ciaran O’Neill was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy. Dr Derek Bacon, a Research Officer in the Centre for Voluntary Action Studies was awarded the Campbell Adamson Prize for the best research paper presented to a Research in the Voluntary Sector Conference in London. Kendo Otaka, a final year postgraduate research student, won the Royal Irish Academy’s Postgraduate Essay Prize.

If you have any comments on these webpages, please send them to:
online@ulster.ac.uk
Copyright © 2002 University of Ulster