AROUND 5,000 students will receive their degrees at Southampton University’s graduation ceremonies over the coming week and they will be joined by leading figures from business, science, history and the arts who will collect honorary awards.
Baroness Martha Lane-Fox , Richard Sadler, Professor William Webb, Professor Martin Goodman, and Ros Rivaz will receive honorary degrees at ceremonies on the Highfield Campus.
Honorary fellowships will also be awarded to war poet Captain Dennis Wilson and Professor Andrew Bell.
Businesswoman and philanthropist Baroness Lane-Fox, was co-founder of Europe’s largest travel and leisure website Lastminute.com.
She was appointed a cross-bench peer in 2013 and currently chairs Go On UK, a coalition of public and private sector partners which is helping millions more people and organisations online.
In March 2014 was appointed chancellor of the Open University.
Richard Sadler is chief executive officer of Lloyd’s Register Group, a global engineering, technical and business services.
Baroness Martha Lane-Fox
In 2004, after 25 years at LR, Richard joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as director of Asset Management.
A former Royal Navy man, Mr Sadler has also co-chaired the Marine Industries Leadership Council.
Professor William Webb is President of the IET – Europe’s largest Professional Engineering body.
He was one of the founding directors of Neul, a company developing machine-to-machine technologies which was sold to Huawei in 2014 for $25m.
Prior to this Prof Webb was a director at Ofcom.
Ros Rivaz, a graduate of Southampton University, is the deputy chair of the University Council.
After a career in industry she is now involved in a variety of not-for-profit activities, including the Government-sponsored Your Life campaign, which inspires young people to take maths and science at GCSE and beyond.
War Poet Capt Dennis Wilson. Inset Capt Wilson during the Second World War
Professor Martin David Goodman is president, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and has also lectured in Roman History at Christ Church, Oxford.
Captain Dennis Wilson’s career as a commercial artist was cut short by the outbreak of the war. While serving in Normandy in 1944 he was injured leaving him 40 per cent disabled for the rest of his life.
Dennis joined Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1949 and stayed with them as sales rep and then senior manager for 49 years.
Throughout his life Dennis has written poetry, and since 2010 five volumes of his work have been published. A review of his war poetry dubbed him, 'The Wilfred Owen of World War II.
After holding research posts in Oska and Paris Professor Andy Bell joined MOD research establishment at Porton Down, where he undertook research into chemical and biological agent detection and rose to become Chief Scientist and then Chief Technical Officer.
Prof Bell is chair of the Advisory Board to the Department of Chemistry at Southampton University and is also a governor at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and vice chair of Wilton and District Band.
Graduation ceremonies will take place in the Turner Sims hall and the Nuffield theatre from Wednesday to Thursday, July 23
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