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Honorary graduates for 2023 announced

Posted on 17 July 2023

The University of York has announced that 10 leading figures will receive honorary degrees this week during graduation ceremonies at Central Hall.

Graduations will take place at the University's Central Hall

Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty; British playwright, David Edgar;  historian and best-selling author, William Dalrymple; Chief Executive of Channel 4, Alex Mahon; and activist, author and politician, Magid Magid, will be honoured during the five-day celebrations.

Honorary degrees will also be awarded to former Director of Music and Performing Arts at Southbank Centre, Gillian Moore; entrepreneur of the arts, Sanjoy Roy; pioneer in the fields of photophysics and photochemistry, Professor Amilra de Silva; Scientific Director and Chair of the Directorate of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Professor Sibylle Günter; and Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council at the University of York, Denise Jagger.

Before becoming Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty was Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care, head of the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR), interim Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for International Development. 

A practising NHS consultant physician and epidemiologist, he was also Professor of Public and International Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and undertook research on malaria and other infectious diseases in Africa and Asia as well as the UK.

Since March 2020, he has played a key role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

Historian and writer, William Dalrymple, works include the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning Return of a King. His most recent book, The Anarchy, was long-listed and short-listed for multiple prestigious awards, and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations. 

He regularly writes for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and The Guardian and is a founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, India. 

David Edgar has written plays for theatre, television, radio and film. He has written original plays and adaptations for the Royal Shakespeare Company, including an multi-award-winning adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby. 

He writes regularly for the Guardian, the London Review of Books and other periodicals. He is a past President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), and received an Outstanding Contribution award from the union earlier this year. 

Magid Magid is a Somali-British activist, author and politician. He is the author of The Art of Disruption: A Manifesto For Real Change. He is currently the founder and executive director of Union of Justice, a pan-European organisation dedicated to racial justice and climate justice. 

He has been a member of the European Parliament representing Yorkshire & the Humber, Mayor of Sheffield, and an elected councillor representing his community. He has been an advocate for climate justice, anti-racism and protecting the rights of refugees and migrants.

Under the leadership of Alex Mahon, Channel 4 has transformed into a digital-first public media company, offering the UK’s biggest free streaming service, and becoming one of the largest social media brands for young people in the UK.

Alex is a passionate supporter of equitable representation and is committed to campaigning for opportunities for those from an ethnically diverse background and championing women’s health at work, having launched the UK media industry’s first menopause and pregnancy loss policies through Channel 4. These policies have since been adopted by companies worldwide.

Gillian Moore was Director of Music and Performing Arts at Southbank Centre until 2022, where she oversaw an extensive programme of classical, jazz and contemporary music in one of the world's largest cultural institutions. She is currently the Centre's Artistic Associate.

Throughout her career, Gillian has been committed to changing the landscape for music and encouraging wider conversation and action to improve diversity and equality in the industry. She is a writer and broadcaster for a number of major outlets, including BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and The Guardian.

Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, Sanjoy Roy is responsible for festivals all over the world, including the world’s largest free literary gathering, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. 

Sanjoy is a founder-trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust, working to provide support services for street children in Delhi where over 130,000 children have benefited from education, training and residential services.  

An award-winning director, Sanjoy works closely with various cultural industry bodies in India and is co-chair of the Art and Culture Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. 

 

Amilra de Silva, is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at  Queen’s University Belfast and established a fluorescent photoinduced electron transfer (PET) sensor tool which is now used in over 1,200 laboratories. He collaborated on a market-leading blood gas / electrolyte analyser, which is now in widespread use across human and veterinary medicine.   

Amilra also invented the experimental field of molecular logic-based computation, which is now practised in over 1,600 chemistry and molecular biology laboratories.

At the age of 36, Professor Dr Sibylle Günter, became the youngest woman in the history of the Max Planck Society to be appointed Scientific Member and Director of the Institute, and since 2011, she has been Scientific Director and Chair of the Directorate. 

She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German Academy of Science and Engineering (Acatech), the Academia Europaea, and the Swiss Academy of Science and Engineering (SATW).

Denise Jagger is Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council at the University of York, and formerly a partner with the international law firm, Eversheds Sutherland.  She held key commercial and management positions during the rapid growth and transformation of ASDA and its owner, global retailer, Walmart.

Throughout her career, Denise has championed equality, diversity and inclusion as a driver of better decision making, improved performance and commercial success and has an interest in the good governance of all organisations. 

In addition to her role at the University of York, Denise is currently a Trustee of the National Trust, Senior Independent Director at both Reach PLC and Pool Reinsurance, and a Non-Executive Director at CLS Holdings PLC.

They will receive their honorary degrees during graduation ceremonies at the University’s Central Hall from Tuesday, 18 July to Saturday 22 July 2023.

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