Professor Cooper has been chair of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, an umbrella body of 46 learned societies in the social sciences representing 88,000 social scientists, since 2009. He was also lead scientist on the Government Office for Science Foresight project, Mental Capital and Wellbeing, in 2008. He was particularly pleased to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, was the founding President of the British Academy of Management, and is currently President of RELATE.

“This honour really means a lot to me – particularly since I was an American who has now made his home in Britain,” said Professor Cooper. “It’s a real thrill and pretty humbling for someone like me who has come from a working-class background – with immigrant parents from the Ukraine and Romania – and being the first in my family to go to university.”

He is the author or editor of over 160 books (on occupational stress, women at work, and industrial and organisational psychology) and over 100 book chapters in books. He has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV and radio.

In 2001, Cary was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to occupational safety and health.

Cary has lived in the UK for 50 years, having moved here as a student in 1964. He had a distinguished academic career at UMIST before moving to Lancaster University in 1992.