Five Trinity Hall members have this week been recognised for their services to Computer Technology, Arts, Engineering, Environment & Development, and International Relations & Politics.
Sir Andy Hopper, Professor of Computer Technology in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, has been knighted for services to Computer Technology.
Professor Andy Hopper
An Honorary Fellow at Trinity Hall where he is an alumnus (1974, Computer Science) he is Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society, and has made a major impact on the modern digital world through pioneering work in computer systems and architectures.
The work of he and his team on computing and sustainability is helping to tackle global problems such as biodiversity and climate change.
He has a strong commitment to diversity: as Head of the Department of Computer Science and Technology in Cambridge for 14 years, he helped increase the number of women appointed to the staff from a handful to over half. The culture that was created also helped to establish more than 200 start-up businesses.
“The University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Cluster have provided a wonderfully collaborative and flexible framework within which I have had the good fortune to work for 47 years,” he said.
Alumnus and Honorary Fellow Edmund de Waal (1983, English), potter and writer, has been awarded a CBE for services to the Arts.
Edmund de Waal outside the Jerwood library
Edmund has studied ceramics in both England and Japan. He is best known for his large scale installations, which have been exhibited around the world. He has had major interventions in many museums and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum, Waddesdon Manor, Tate Britain and the National Museum of Wales. In Autumn 2013, de Waal opened his first major solo show in New York with the Gagosian Gallery and installed a work for the new Asian Pavilion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
He is also known as an author and has written widely on art and ceramics. His family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), has been translated into nearly 30 languages and has won many literary prizes.
In 2019, Edmund donated the ceramic and steel work Lacrimae rerum, which translates as ‘tears of things’ from a line in Virgil’s Aeneid, to the College. The piece references the loss of libraries and memoralises the relationship of his father and grandfather. Lacrimae rerum was intended for a library as he considers them to be a central part of his life and has been a vocal supporter of them. The College is delighted that the Jerwood Library’s beautiful reading room was chosen as its home.
Alumnus Billy Boyle (1997, Engineering), CEO of Owlstone Medical, has been awarded an MBE for services to Engineering.
Billy Boyle
Billy is a serial inventor, entrepreneur and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. At Cambridge, he co-founded Owlstone Nanotech, marketing a programmable microchip sensor with applications ranging from toxic gas detection to disease diagnostics and deployed globally in the defence, oil, food, water and health sectors. Owlstone has raised over $38 million, with more than $32 million in military contracts, and was a 2008 MacRobert Award finalist.
In 2016, Billy led the spin out of Owlstone Medical whose non-invasive breathalyser for disease won the 2018 MacRobert Award. As CEO, he leads more than 170 researchers, has raised over $80 million and his products are deployed in over 150 clinical sites globally.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Owlstone Medical donated PPE to Addenbrookes Hospital and began researching the possibility of capturing COVID-19 samples from breath.
Alumnus Matthew Gorman (1997, Environment & Development), Carbon Strategy Director at Heathrow Airport, has been awarded an MBE for services to Decarbonisation of Aviation.
Alumnus Doug Chalmers (2006, International Relations & Politics), Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, has been appointed appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).
Congratulations to all Trinity Hall members who were bestowed honours this week as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
To read about more members of the Cambridge community who received honours see the University’s news pages.
