Nine people distinguished in their fields have been awarded honorary degrees at Lancaster University’s graduation ceremonies this July.

Jon Moulton

Honorary Doctor of Letters

Jon Moulton is Chairman and founder of the private equity firm Better Capital. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Corporate Finance Qualification and is a Fellow of the Society of Turnaround Professionals. Formerly Managing Partner of Alchemy, Jon also previously worked with Citicorp Venture Capital in New York and London, Permira and Apax.

Jon is Trustee and Principal Donor to the J P Moulton Charitable Foundation and the Jon Moulton Charity Trust which has committed some £49m to clinical trials. Jon is also a Trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation. He was a director of the listed Battle Against Cancer Investment Trust (BACIT Ltd). Jon is the Non-Executive Chairman of Infex Therapeutics and until recently was Chairman of FinnCap, the stockbroker and The International Stock Exchange. He is a member of the ICAEW Technical Strategy Board and of their corporate finance faculty.

Professor Dinah Birch CBE

Honorary Doctor of Letters

Professor Dinah Birch is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool.

Dinah has published widely on Victorian fiction and poetry, and on the work of John Ruskin. Her books include Our Victorian Education, and she is the general editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She has recently published new editions of several works with Oxford University Press, and served as a member of the Man Booker prize panel. She is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and London Review of Books. Among others, her external roles include President of the British Association for Victorian Studies and former Chair of the Advisory Board of The Ruskin.

She was awarded a CBE in 2016, for services to higher education, literary scholarship, and cultural life.

Professor Dave Goulson

Honorary Doctor of Science

Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at University of Sussex, specialising in bee ecology.

He has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects, plus seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers A Sting in the Tale, the Garden Jungle in 2019, and Silent Earth in 2021.

Goulson founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity which has grown to 12,000 members. In 2015, he was named eighth in BBC Wildlife Magazine’s list of the top 50 most influential people in conservation. In 2018, 2019 and 2020 he was named as a ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ by Thompson ISI. He is a trustee of Pesticide Action Network, an Ambassador for the UK Wildlife Trusts, and president of Pesticide Free Scotland.

Professor John Drew, CBE

Honorary Doctor of Laws

John Drew graduated from Lancaster University in 1974 with a History and Politics degree. During his time there, he was twice elected as Chair of the Students Representative Council. Lancaster University gave John an abiding commitment to social justice, leading to him becoming a social worker and eventually a Director of Social Services in East London. In 2009 he became Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales where he led the reduction in the number of children in prison from 3,200 to 1,250 in four years. In total, 30,000 young people have been spared unnecessary imprisonment as a result of these reforms.

Gabriel Meyer

Honorary Doctor of Letters

Poet-journalist Gabriel Meyer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has lived and worked throughout the Middle East, the Balkans and East Africa. He was especially acclaimed for his coverage of the first Palestinian Intifada and of the Bosnian War. His reporter’s diary on the civil war in Sudan, War and Faith in Sudan (Eerdmans), won ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year award for essays in 2006. He is also widely known for his published poetry and novels.

Gabriel has been involved with the historic Ruskin Art Club since 1998 and currently serves as its executive director.

Ikponwosa "I.K." Ero

Honorary Doctor of Laws

I.K. Ero is a lawyer and advocate in the field of international human rights. She is the first United Nations Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism and has been a key player in drawing global attention to the issues faced by people with albinism in African and worldwide. She has led international advocacy efforts on harmful practices related to accusation of witchcraft and ritual attacks, which culminated in a historic resolution at the UN in 2021.

I.K. is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2020 International Advocate Award by the US Council on Disabilities and in 2017 was recognised among the 100 most influential Africans by Pan African Magazine.

Luis Juste OBE

Honorary Doctor of Laws

Luis was born in Avila, Spain and graduated from CEU San Pablo University, Madrid. He completed an MA in Economics from University College, Dublin. Luis began his career with Santander in 1989 working in the Institutional Banking Sector in Madrid. Following this he worked in varying international managerial positions. He joined the Santander Universities Global Division in 2000 and was later appointed as Director for Santander Universities UK. The position saw him establish partnerships and collaboration agreements with more than 75 universities.

In April 2013, Luis became Commercial Director, Santander Universities Global until his retirement in 2017. Luis was awarded an OBE for services to higher education in 2016.

Professor Juergen Maier CBE FREng FIET FCGI

Honorary Doctor of Science

Juergen Maier is a British-Austrian businessman and the former Chief Executive of Siemens UK, a position he held from July 2014 to December 2019 having joined them in 1986 as a graduate engineer with a BSc in production engineering from Nottingham Trent University. Juergen can also be described as an industrialist and business adviser. He is Chair of Digital Catapult, which is the UK authority on advanced digital technology. He is the co-founder of vocL – a platform for responsible business voices, and is Vice-Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership where he supports the drive for the green re-industrialisation of the North of England.

He was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s honours list 2019.

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi

Honorary Doctor of Science

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi is the current Director of Public Health, Lancashire County Council, and has been at the forefront of the local response to Covid-19. During the pandemic, Sakthi chaired the Lancashire Resilience Forum, a joint intelligence and planning group which supported the management of Covid-19 across the region. Sakthi also became a regular reassuring presence on local and national media during this time.

Sakthi has a demonstrable history of working in the NHS, local government, and industry with his breadth of knowledge feeding into programmes aimed at improving health outcomes and reducing inequalities by promoting wellbeing and fitness, disease prevention and improving quality of life in the UK population.