Honorary graduates 2012-13

Professor Dame Athene Donald DBE FRS (DSc)

Friday 20 July 2012 11:45am

Dame Athene Donald obtained both her first and second degrees from Cambridge and, after four years at Cornell in the USA, returned to the University of Cambridge in 1981, being appointed a university lecturer in 1985. She became a professor in 1998. Her research focuses on using the ideas of soft matter physics to study a wide range of systems of both synthetic and biological origin. The unifying theme is understanding structure-function-processing relationships.

Athene was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999, and was awarded their Bakerian Prize Lecture in 2006. She has also been awarded numerous prizes by other bodies including the 2009 L'Oreal/UNESCO For Women in Science Laureate for Europe. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours. Currently she serves on the Council of the University of Cambridge and is the University's Gender Equality Champion; she is also a Trustee of the Science Museum and Chair of the Royal Society's Education Committee.