30 Jan 08

Leading scientists, an administrator, a philosopher and a soprano are among an international group of six men and women who will receive honorary degrees from Oxford University this year, subject to the approval of Congregation. The honorands will be awarded their degrees at Encaenia on Wednesday 18 June 2008.

Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa:

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, BA Delhi, MA MPhil Oxf. – Economist and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Government of India, Rhodes Scholar and Honorary Fellow of Magdalen. He has been extensively involved in India’s economics reforms as Commerce Secretary and in posts at the Ministry of Finance and Department of Economic Affairs. He was also the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office at the International Monetary Fund.

Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa:

Professor Thomas Nagel, BA Cornell, BPhil Oxf, PhD Harvard, FBA – Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College. Professor Nagel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for Humanities. He is the author of a number of books including The Possibility of Altruism and The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice.

Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa:

Professor Bert Sakmann, Staatsexamen Munich, MD Gottingen - Cell physiologist. Director of the Department of Cell Biology and Professor of Physiology at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). Professor Sakmann has received a number of prizes including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the highest honour awarded in German research, and, in 1991 was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.

Professor Sheila Evans Widnall, BSc, MS ScD MIT, FRAES, FAAAS, FAIAA, FAPS - Institute Professor and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specialist in the study of aircraft turbulence and spiralling airflows. She is Former United States Secretary of the Air Force, Former Vice-President and Member of the National Academy of Engineering, Associate Provost of MIT.

Professor Ada Yonath, BSc MSc Hebrew University, PhD Weizmann Institute of Science - Crystallographer and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and Director of the Helen and Milton A Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences; Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
 
Degree of the Doctor of Music, honoris causa:

Dame Emma Kirkby, OBE, MA Oxf, FGSM, FRCM, HON. FRAM - Soprano and Proponent of Early Music. She has sung with the Taverner Consort and the Academy of Ancient Music. She specialises in a Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.