St Andrews University to hold winter graduations

Younger Hall plays host to hundreds

Students from all over the world will gather in Fife for St Andrews University’s winter graduations.

More than 900 postgraduate students will take part in two ceremonies today and tomorrow.

Graduates from Scotland, China, Nigeria, Germany and America will receive their academic awards in the Younger Hall.

They will be joined by three worldrenowned figures from the fields of science and political theory who will be granted honorary degrees by the university.

Professor Dame Sue Black, the director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification and the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at Dundee University, will be honoured today.

She has worked nationally and internationally on crimes associated with wars, murders, and the abuse of children.

Also today, the university will honour Professor Michael Ferguson, Regius Professor of Life Sciences and Academic Lead for Research Strategy, School of Life Sciences at Dundee University.

His research focuses on understanding the biochemistry of protozoan parasites which cause tropical diseases.

The professor established the drug discovery unit at Dundee University and led the construction of the Discovery Centre for translational and interdisciplinary research, which he directs.

He is also director of the Dundee Proteomics facility.

A special award of honorary degrees will also be conferred on two former members of staff who gave a combined total of 81 years of service to the university.

Mrs Aileen Colford, who was an integral member of the graduation team, worked there for 41 years, while Mrs Donna James served the university for 40 years in student-facing roles and then in the graduation office.

Both women retired in the summer after working on their final university graduation ceremonies.

Tomorrow Professor Roger Smith, world-renowned political theorist and genocide scholar and Emeritus Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, will be honoured.

He is a founding member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.