Derrick Samuel Frederick Crothers (born 24 June 1942 in Belfast, died 15 January 2021) was a Northern Irish mathematician, physicist and former politician.
Crothers grew up in Cookstown, Tyrone, from the age of 7, and studied at Rainey Endowed School, where he won the top mathematics and Science State Exhibition prize in 1959. He then read mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford, before obtaining his doctorate in 1966 at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) on "Theoretical Studies of Inelastic Atomic Collisions" under David Bates [1] In the following years, he lectured at QUB, undertook research at University College London, worked as a tutor for the Open University, and was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. [2]
At the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, Crothers was elected for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland in South Antrim, [2] receiving 5,975 first preference votes. He did not stand for the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention or subsequent assemblies, but did contest the Lower Falls area of Belfast City Council at the 1989 local elections. He took only 135 votes and was not elected. [3]
In 1985, Crothers was promoted to a Personal Chair in Theoretical Physics at QUB. [1] He was elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1991 and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1994, before retiring in 2007. [4] At QUB, he supervised over 30 PhD students. [5]
Queen's University Belfast officially the Queen's University of Belfast, is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as "Queen's College, Belfast" and opened four years later.
Mark Durkan is a retired Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. Durkan was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from November 2001 to October 2002, and the Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 2001 to 2010. He contested the Dublin constituency for Fine Gael at the 2019 European Parliament election.
Sir David Robert Bates was a Northern Irish mathematician and physicist.
David Ford is a politician in Northern Ireland, who was leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland from October 2001 until October 2016 and was Northern Ireland Minister of Justice from April 2010 until May 2016. He was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for South Antrim from 1998 to 2018.
The Green Party Northern Ireland is a political party in Northern Ireland. Like many green political parties around the world, its origins lie in the anti-nuclear, labour and peace movements of the 1970s and early 1980s.
John Thomas Alderdice, Baron Alderdice is a Northern Ireland politician. He was the Speaker and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Belfast from 1998 to 2004 and 1998 to 2003, respectively. Alderdice was the leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland from 1987 to 1998, and since 1996 has sat in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat.
Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey,, best known as Reg Empey, is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland, who was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 2005 to 2010. He was the chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party from 2012 to 2019. Empey was also twice Lord Mayor of Belfast and was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Belfast from 1998 to 2011.
Sir Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey was an Australian mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics.
Peter Coles is a theoretical cosmologist at Maynooth University. He studies the large scale structure of our Universe.
Nelson McCausland is a former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician from Northern Ireland, who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Belfast from 2003 until he lost his seat in 2017. and served as Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure (2009–2011) and subsequently Minister for Social Development (2011–2014) in the Northern Ireland Executive.
Denny Vitty is a politician in Northern Ireland.
Dorothy Dunlop was a former Ulster Unionist and Conservative politician.
Seamus Lynch is a former Irish republican and socialist politician.
Robert Dick Megaw was an Irish barrister and a Unionist politician.
Edna Longley is an Irish literary critic and cultural commentator specialising in modern Irish and British poetry.
Máire O'Neill is an Irish Professor of Information Security and inventor based at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies Queen's University Belfast. She was named the 2007 British Female Inventors & Innovators Network Female Inventor of the Year. She was the youngest person to be made a professor of engineering at Queen's University Belfast and youngest person to be inducted into the Irish Academy of Engineering.
Karl George Emeléus was an English experimental physicist who spent half a century on the staff at Queen's University Belfast. His early research in detection of nuclear radiation led on to a lifetime of research into the conduction of electricity through gases.
Patricia O'Lynn is a Northern Irish academic, educator, and politician who was an Alliance Party Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from 2022 to 2023. She was elected as an MLA in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election for North Antrim.
Peter McReynolds is a Northern Irish politician who is an Alliance Party Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). He was elected as an MLA in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election for Belfast East.
Eóin Tennyson is a Northern Irish Alliance Party politician who has served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Upper Bann since the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election.