Cambridge academics honoured in the 2015 New Year Honours List

Professor Sharon Peacock and Professor Graeme Barker are among those who have been given honours in this year’s New Year Honours list.

Clinical microbiologist Professor Sharon Peacock was awarded a CBE for her services to Medical Microbiology. Peacock is known for her work with the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programme in Thailand where for seven years she directed a wide-ranging programme of bacterial disease research. In the UK she has focused on the role of sequencing technologies in diagnostic microbiology and public health.

Peacock chairs the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Initiative and is deputy director of the Wellcome Trust Cambridge Centre for Global Health Research. She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2013. “Delighted” to have won the award, Peacock said: “I have the privilege of working with an outstanding group of scientists at the University of Cambridge and at the Sanger Institute, and this honour reflects their support and efforts. The award also reflects the importance of basic and applied microbiological research for individual and public health.”

Professor Graeme Barker was awarded a CBE for services to Archaeology. The former Disney Professor of Archaeology and director, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, is known for his research focussing on prehistoric archaeology, the relationship between landscape and people, transitions from foraging to farming, and the origins of human behaviour and migrations.

Barker has worked all over the world, including in the rainforest of Borneo, and the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa. One of his major contributions has been work showing how humans have adapted to climate change in the past, and the lessons that can be learned from this today.

Describing himself as “thrilled” to be awarded the CBE he said: “I changed to archaeology half way through my undergraduate degree at Cambridge inspired by meeting Colin Renfrew, then a research fellow, and was privileged to succeed him as Disney Professor in 2004. It has also been a privilege to work in archaeology, which has so much to tell us about what it means to be human. It is a team subject par excellence and in accepting the award I have felt very much that it celebrates the achievements of so many colleagues, and good friends from all parts of the world whose support has been so important to anything I have achieved.

Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment, was also awarded a CBE, for Services to Education.

Simon Lebus, Group Chief Executive of Cambridge Assessment said “We are all delighted that Tim has been so honoured; it is a signal recognition of the body of work he produced during his time as a Group Director at Cambridge Assessment.”

Oates, who joined Cambridge Assessment in May 2006, said “I would like to thank all those at Cambridge Assessment who enabled me to make this contribution to improving our education system.”

Trevor Llewellyn Richards, formerly Capital Project Liaison Officer at the University’s School of Clinical Medicine, was awarded a BEM for services to Biomedical Research and the Welfare of Animals in Research. Mr Richards was Director of Central Biomedical Resources from 1996 to 2012 and has been described as an “outstanding bio-facilities manager.”