A broadcaster, a world-renowned explorer and a RSPCA manager are among the ten people to receive honorary degrees from the University of Nottingham at this year's summer graduation ceremonies.
Mike Dilger, Levison Wood and Ella Carpenter, alongside ten other individuals, joined more than 7,000 students at their graduation ceremonies on University Park Campus, which ran from 18 to 26 July 2023.
Honorary degrees are granted in recognition of someone's outstanding contribution, success and distinction within their profession or a campaign close to their hearts, with previous graduates including Vicky McClure, Marie Ashby, and Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam.
Levison Wood – Doctor of Laws
A world-renowned explorer, author, and photographer, Major Levison Wood has written eleven best-selling books and produced several critically acclaimed documentaries which have been aired around the globe.
He has travelled and filmed in over one hundred countries worldwide, and his expeditions include walking the length of the river Nile, the Himalayas, Central America, and the Arabian Peninsula. His most recent television projects have focused on wildlife and conservation.
Levison has served as an Officer in the British Parachute Regiment, where he fought in Afghanistan on combat operations. His military service over fifteen years has seen him deploy on five continents.
He has interviewed and photographed some of the most prominent names in the international community, from Hollywood actor George Clooney to King Charles and the Dalai Lama.
He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, The Royal Society of Arts and the Explorers Club. He is A UK ambassador for UNICEF and had raised over a million pounds for various charities.
He said: "It is a huge privilege to be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Nottingham, where I am proud to have studied twenty years ago. My experiences there, and the fantastic quality of teaching, inspired me to want to put my history degree to good use and become an author. The path that followed has been filled with grand adventures and innumerable joys, but I will never forget where it all began."
I hope to inspire the next generation of creatives, explorers and critical thinkers, whatever their field, and to encourage people to follow their own curiosity wherever it may lead.
Ella Carpenter – Doctor of Laws
As the Centre Manager at the RSPCA Radcliffe Animal Centre, Ella is committed to education to improve animal welfare in society.
Each year, Ms Carpenter ensures funds are raised to continue running the animal centre, and she has recently been able to complete a multi-million-pound refurbishment supporting further animal care and community education.
The RSPCA Radcliffe Animal Centre is one of the clinical associate practices of the University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, providing students with experience in managing a varied caseload in a real working environment.
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons accreditation group recently commended Ms Carpenter and her team on their commitment to education in a report based on a visit to the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.
I feel truly proud to have been awarded such an honour in recognition of the work of myself and the team at Radcliffe Animal Centre. Working alongside future vets helps to develop a greater understanding of the animal welfare issues that need to be jointly tackled by all who work within this profession. It was a privilege to be part of the university's graduation ceremony and celebrate the achievements of so many of their students.
Mike Dilger – Doctor of Science
An English naturalist, writer, broadcaster, Mike is perhaps best known as the wildlife reporter on the BBC television programme The One Show.
He has presented several wildlife programmes, including Wildlife Uncovered: UK, Nature's Top 40 and Nature's Calendar, as well as filing numerous reports for both Springwatch and Inside Out. He is the author of seven nature books, including his most recent book One Thousand Shades of Green, which follows his mission to find a thousand different British plants in a calendar year. He has also presented and contributed to a variety of programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Costing the Earth.
As well as being an experienced presenter and author, he has travelled widely in South America, East Africa and Southeast Asia on ecological expeditions. He has also lived and worked extensively in the tropics, including two years in Ecuador and projects in Peru, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Tanzania and Vietnam.
He is a well-known naturalist who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the flora and fauna of both Britain and Ecuador and an unparalleled enthusiasm for sharing his passion of the natural world.
Michael Brooks – Doctor of Science
Emeritus Professor Michael Brooks is a leading international researcher in the artificial intelligence field of image and video understanding at the University of Adelaide. He has published extensively in the area of computer vision and his work in smart video surveillance has attracted international awards and gained wide commercial use.
Professor Brooks has made extensive contributions in research leadership. Over a period of 13 years at the University of Adelaide, he established six of the University of Adelaide's enduring flagship research institutes, progressed key collaborative partnerships with distinguished universities around the world, and contributed to the University's rise in international rankings.
Dr Margaret Jull Costa – Doctor of Letters
Dr Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over thirty years and has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers, achieving critical acclaim.
Over the years, her work has brought her numerous awards, from the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for A Heart So White in 1997, to the Premio Valle-Inclán for On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes in 2018, as well as the Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
In 2013, she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2014, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours list for services to literature.
Dame Helen Ghosh DCB – Doctor of Laws
Dame Helen Ghosh worked in the civil service for more than 30 years. From 2005-2010, she was Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and from 2010, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. While working as a civil servant, she was particularly interested in social exclusion and urban regeneration policies, and in a variety of local and global environmental issues.
Leaving the Civil Service in 2012, she became Director General of the National Trust, and in 2018 took up her role as Master of Balliol at University of Oxford. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Bath in 2008.
She is a Trustee of the Ashmolean Museum, the Oxford Preservation Trust and the Blackfriars Overseas Aid Trust, among other organisations.
Tony Collingridge OBE – Doctor of Laws
Tony Collingridge OBE was appointed Director of Trade and Investment for Malaysia from 2011-2017 and was a member of the University of Nottingham Asia Advisory Board until 2021. He ran his own company, Delta Gate Solutions, in Malaysia from 2017 until 2021, supporting trade and investment between the UK and Malaysia. He is currently an Independent Non-Executive Director of Prudential Assurance Malaysia Berhad having previously also been an Independent Non-Executive Director of Jardines' Cycle and Carriage Sdn Bhd between 2018 and 2022. Tony has been carrying out commercial work for more than 28 years with a focus on the Asia Pacific Region and was awarded his OBE in 2007.
Tony started his Civil Service career in 1978, spending his early career supporting UK Ministers on energy matters and in Parliament. He was Head of the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa Team with UK Trade and Investment from 1999-2006, encouraging companies from the region to invest in the UK. Prior to that he worked as Head of the Australasia team with the UK Government's Overseas Trade Services from 1995-1999, promoting and assisting UK trade with the region.
Ambassador (ret) Luis C.deBaca – Doctor of Laws
Ambassador Luis C.deBaca coordinated U.S. government activities in the fight against contemporary forms of slavery and, as one of the most decorated federal prosecutors in the U.S., he investigated and prosecuted cases of human trafficking, hate crimes, and police misconduct.
He also negotiated labour and human rights advances, and managed multimillion dollar grant portfolios combating slavery and sexual abuse and built his litigation record into policy, incorporating the voices of victims, workers, and the advocacy community into decision making.
Following his prosecution career, he served as Counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary. In the Obama Administration, he served as Director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and then as the Director of the Justice Department's Office for Sex Offender Monitoring Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking.
Dr Helen Mary Pain – Doctor of Science
Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr Pain is both a Chartered Chemist and a Chartered Scientist. She joined the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 1994 and has led many of its strategic functions before becoming CEO in June 2021.
Dr Pain was Chair of the Science Council 2018 – 2021, a UK organisation for the advancement of the science profession, and Chair of the Technician Commitment Steering Board, established to support development of technicians in Higher Education.
She's a champion for the chemical profession and has commissioned campaigns to address inequality in science, to make chemistry more inclusive in schools, and to tackle global sustainability challenges.
Dr Nigist Asfaw – Doctor of Science
Dr Asfaw is Emeritus Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, College of Computational and Natural Sciences at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Her research focuses on natural product chemistry in particular on isolation and structure elucidation of natural products from indigenous aromatic and medicinal plants; and green chemistry.
Dr Asfaw has been recognised with numerous international awards and grants and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (HonFRSC), a founding and board member of both the Federation of African Chemical Societies and the Pan African Chemistry Network (PACN) and also a member of the Green Chemistry Network in the UK.
She is one of the founders of Green Chemistry in Ethiopia, which aims to design less hazardous chemicals and processes for more sustainable use and production of chemicals and was also a special lecturer in the School of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham from 2010-2012 and she has a particular interest in promoting green chemistry education in schools.
