Sir Geoff’s handprints for posterity

ON 14 NOVEMBER a formal civic reception will be held at the City Chambers when Professor Sir Geoff Palmer will receive the Edinburgh Award,

Sir Geoff is pictured above having his handprints cast in clay. These will then be carved into a flagstone in the Quad outside the council building. He joins a list of people who have been honoured in this way such as Sir Tom Farmer and Ken Buchanan, MBE.

With a long association with the city of Edinburgh, the scientist arrived here in 1964 to study his PhD in Grain Science and Technology jointly with the then Heriot-Watt College and the University of Edinburgh. He completed his doctorate in 1967 and began working at the Brewing Research Foundation where he developed the industrial process of Barley Abrasion, and pioneered the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope to study cereal grains. In 1977, he returned to Heriot-Watt University as a staff member and gained a DSc degree for his research work in 1985. In 1989 he became the first black professor in Scotland and remained in Edinburgh until his retirement in 2005. In 2021 he was appointed Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University. He was knighted in 2014 for services to human rights, science and charity.