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RSC's Artistic Director Adrian Noble Among Ten Honorary Warwick Graduates

Originally published 11 April 2001

The University of Warwick has announced the names of ten people that will be awarded honorary degrees at its Summer Degree Congregations from 10-13th July including renowned scholar Edward Said and RSC head Adrian Noble. Short biographies of the honorary graduands now follow:

Adrian Noble Hon DLitt


Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company since 1991 he has directed a host of plays. On arrival at the RSC he was faced with a 3.5 million deficit. Ten years on he has wiped out that deficit, the RSC is achieving wide critical acclaim for the This England cycle of history plays which has allowed audiences to see the entire history cycle performed chronologically from Richard II through to Richard III, and the RSC is now poised to change the face of Stratford-upon-Avon with ambitious plans for a new theatre. He also served as the RSC's Associate Director (1982-90), and as a resident Director at the RSC in 1980-82. Previous to this he held Directors post at the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Professor Sir Stewart Sutherland Hon DLitt

Principal of the University of Edinburgh. Professor Sir Stewart Sutherland FBA, FRSE, was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of London and HM Chief Inspector of Schools in England. Sir Stewart is a member of the Board of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and sits on the Government's Council for Science and Technology. He also chaired the recent Royal Commission on the Long Term Care of the Elderly.

Professor Edward Said Hon LLD


Professor Edward Said is a renowned Palestinian-American literary critic who studies literature in light of social and cultural politics. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1963. His first book, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography(1966), was an expansion of his doctoral thesis. The book examines Conrad's short stories and letters for the underlying tension of the author's narrative style; it is concerned with the cultural dynamics of beginning a work of literature or scholarship.

In Orientalism(1978), perhaps his best-known work, Said examines Western stereotypes about the Orient, specifically the Islamic world, and argues that Orientalist scholarship is based on Western imperialism. He has written a vast number of other works particularly on the Middle East.

Dame Helen Reeves Hon LLD


Dame Helen Reeves is Director of Victim Support, the national organisation for crime victims and for witnesses in the criminal courts. She read social administration with psychology and law at the University of Nottingham. After graduation she worked as a medical social worker at Nottingham City Hospital. In 1967 she became a probation officer (later senior probation officer) with the Inner London Probation Service. In 1980 she was appointed the first Director of the newly created National Association of Victims Support Schemes. Soon after joining Victim Support she played an instrumental role in setting up the Forum for Initiatives in Reparation and Mediation.

She is a member of the Home Office Victims' Steering Committee, has served on the Home Office Working Party on the temporary release of prisoners and on the National Board for Crime Prevention, is secretary of the European Forum for Victim Services, and is Vice-President of the World Society of Victimology. She was awarded the OBE In 1986 and was made a Dame in the 1999 Queen's birthday honours.

Professor Robert Darnton Hon DLitt


Professor Darnton is one of the most significant social and cultural historians of Europe working in the US today. Also an honorary professor in the University of Warwick's History Dept he has taught European history at Princeton in the US since 1968. His research mainly concerns eighteenth-century France, the history of books, and censorship. He also worked for a time as a reporter on the New York Times (1964-65).

His books include Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment (1968), The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopaedia (1979), The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1983), The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984), Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775-1800 (co-edited), The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History(1989), The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France (1995), The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769-1789 (1995). At present he is preparing an electronic book on the book trade in eighteenth-century France.

Professor Lady (Noreen) Murray Hon DSc


A biological sciences researcher at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded her PhD by the University of Birmingham in 1959. She became a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology, at Stanford University, California, 1960-64, a Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Botany, Cambridge University, 1964-67 and joined University of Edinburgh in 1967. She was Presidnet of the Gentical Society 1987-90, and made an FRSE in 1989 and an FRS in 1982. Her research identified a class of enzymes that can manipulate foreign DNA. The discovery of these enzymes particularly "EcoK, an enzyme from E. coli were key to the development of the genetic manipulation techniques used in science and medicine today

Professor Kenneth Pounds Hon DSc

Professor of Space Physics at the University of Leicester since 1973 and head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Leicester 1986-2000.

He has served in a number of key national research and astronomy roles including was chief executive of PPRAC (1994-8, Member of SERC (the Science and Engineering Research Council 1908-84), the management board of the British National Space Centre 1986-88 and President of RAS 1990-92.

Paul Daniel Hon DLitt

Music Director of the English National Opera since 1997, He was educated at King Henry VIII School in Coventry He was music director with the Opera Factory in London 1987-90, and artistic director of Opera North 190-97 before returning to ENO in 1997. He has conducts many orchestras including the LSO, LPO, RPO, BBCSO, London Sinfonietta, CBSO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the ABC orchestra in Australia .

Professor Raj Reddy Hon DLitt

Professor Raj Reddy is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Stanford in 1966. He joined the Carnegie Mellon as an Associate Professor of Computer Science in 1969. He became a Full Professor in 1973 and was named Simon University Professor in 1992. He was the founding Director of Carnegie's Robotics Institute 1979-1991, and served as the Dean of CMU's School of Computer Science from 1991- 1999.

Professor Reddy's research interests include the study of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence, spoken language systems, invisible computing, gigabit networks, universal digital libraries, and distance learning on demand.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was president of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence from 1987 to 89. Dr. Reddy was awarded the Legion of Honor by President Mitterand of France in 1984. He was awarded the ACM Turing Award in 1994. He is a member and co-chair of the US President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).

Bob Matthews Hon MA


Paralympic Gold medal winning blind runner Bob Matthews lives in Leamington Spa. He won the gold meal in the 10,000 metres, and silver medals in both the 5,000 metres and the marathon at the paralympic games in October last year. The achievement was all the more spectacular as he had only run the 10,000 metre race twice before. The Australian games were his 6th paralympics and he now has won a total of eight gold medals. He claims to have the fittest guide dog in Britain: nine year old Quando who trains with him.


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Email: puapjd@warwick.ac.uk