The UK Met Office\’s chief scientist, Julia Slingo, has become a Dame in the New Year Honours List. Professor Slingo was recognised in the Honours list for her services to weather and climate science.
Professor Greg Whyte, a sports scientist who has coached celebrities such as David Walliams and Eddie Izzard for Sport Relief endeavours has become an OBE.
Other awards in science include a knighthood for Adrian Bird a geneticist at Edinburugh University.
Before she became Met Office chief scientist in 2009, Professor Slingo was the director of climate research at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science based at the University of Reading, where she visits as a professor of meteorology. Landmarks in her career, spanning more than 30 years include becoming Britain\’s first female professor of meteorology and the first female president of the Royal Meteorological Society.
The chief executive of the Met Office, John Hirst has also been recognised in the New Years Honours List with a CBE.
Greg Whyte, one of the country\’s leading sports scientists became an OBE. Before he embarked on his research career he competed as a modern pentathlete at two Olympic games. Other roles he has undertaken included being the director at then English Institute of Sport for the British Olympic Association (BOA). He became well known for coaching celebrities undertaking challenges for Sport and Comic Relief including, David Walliams swimming the English Channel, Helen Skelton for her Amazon adventure and lastly Eddie Izzard for running 43 marathons in 51 days.
Among the other scientists recognised in the New Year Honours is Adrian Bird, a professor of genetics at the University of Edinburgh, who has been knighted.
Prof Bird is group leader of the Bird Lab at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, which has led research into the \”biological mechanism\” behind a rare type of autism known as Rett\’s syndrome