Donald Gordon Fraser (born 30 October 1949 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is Emeritus Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and in 2008-09 held the office of Senior Proctor within the University. [1] [2]
Fraser served as a junior research fellow at Merton College, Oxford between 1974 and 1976, and as a Fellow on the governing body of Wolfson College, Oxford 1977-78. In 1976, he began to lecture at the university in geochemistry, a position he held until his professorship in 1996. He also served as assistant professor in mineralogy at Columbia University in 1976. He served as chairman of the Faculty of Earth Sciences 1985 to 1988 and again in 1999-2001, along with the Fraser Committee on the future structure of science in Oxford in the late eighties. In 2006, he became a member of Oxford's University Council, elected unopposed, [3] and served as senior proctor in the 2008-09 year. He was a tutorial fellow in geology at Worcester College, Oxford. [2]
He was a senior visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, in 1980-81, later joining CNRS Nice as a senior research associate 1984-85, and as a fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Earth's Interior (Misasa, Japan) 1997-98, returning in 2001-02 as a research fellow and afterwards as a member of its advisory panel. He also worked as a visiting associate of the California Institute of Technology 1998-99, primarily in geological and planetary sciences. [2] He has served as chairman and managing director of university "spin-out" StatSci Europe, and as a director of Prolysis; he has also worked as a consultant to several companies in the petrochemical and energy sectors, including Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron. [2]
He lists skiing, poetry, golf and music among his interests, [2] and the "thermodynamic properties of molten silicates and in the adsorption of biomolecules on mineral surfaces and their role in the origin of biochirality" as research areas. He also co-authored Elementary Thermodynamics for Geologists with Bernard Wood in 1976. [4]
He works on the origin of biological chirality, the development of early biomolecules and the origin of life. He was an opponent of Vice-Chancellor Dr John Hood's proposal for Governance reform in Oxford. [5] He has also warned of a growing "bonus culture" in Oxford, something the University denies. [6]
Sir Zelman Cowen, was an Australian legal scholar and university administrator who served as the 19th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1977 to 1982.
Sir David Nicholas Cannadine is a British author and historian who specialises in modern history, Britain and the history of business and philanthropy. He is currently the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, a visiting professor of history at Oxford University, and the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He was president of the British Academy between 2017 and 2021, the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. He also serves as the chairman of the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery in London and vice-chair of the editorial board of Past & Present.
Avinash Kamalakar Dixit is an Indian-American economist. He is the John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University, and has been Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University, senior research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and Sanjaya Lall Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford.
Lawrence Goldman is an English historian and academic. He is the former director the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
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Peter Clift is a British marine geologist and geophysicist specializing in the geology of Asia and the western Pacific. He is currently the Charles T. McCord Professor of Petroleum Geology at Louisiana State University, which he joined in 2012. Clift was awarded the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2023.
Avinash D. Persaud is emeritus Professor of Gresham College in the UK. He was the Chairman of Intelligence Capital Ltd., a company specializing in analyzing, managing and creating financial liquidity in investment projects and portfolios. He was also the non-Executive Chairman of the London-based Elara Capital, an investment bank. Persaud was a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, Executive Fellow of London Business School and Senior Fellow with the Caribbean Policy Research Institute and Head of its Barbados office.
Roger William Ainsworth was Master of St Catherine's College, Oxford and Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, England.
Timothy David Barnes is a British classicist.
Anthony Robin Dermer Pagden is an author and professor of political science and history at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Sir Robert Stephen John Sparks, is Chaning Wills Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. He is one of the world's leading volcanologists and has been widely recognised for his work in this field.
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Sir Reginald Alfred Hibbert, was a British diplomat.
Ellen Renee Stofan is Under Secretary for Science and Research at The Smithsonian and was previously the Director of the National Air and Space Museum.
Roger Everett Summons is the Schlumberger Professor of Geobiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor of Geobiology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
Shashikumar Madhusudan Chitre FNA, FASc, FNASc, FRAS was an Indian mathematician and astrophysicist, known for his research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The Government of India honored him, in 2012, with Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, for his services to the sciences.
David John Wales is a professor of chemical physics in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge.
Sampat Kumar Tandon is an Indian geologist and a professor emeritus of geology at the University of Delhi. He is a former pro-vice chancellor of Delhi University, Sir J. C. Bose Chair Professor of the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal and a D. N. Wadia Chair Professor of the department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Edward Philip Frank "Ted" Rose is an English palaeontologist and geologist, best known as a historian of military aspects of geology.
Heather Viles is a professor of biogeomorphology and heritage conservation in the school of geography and the environment at Oxford University, senior research fellow at Worcester College, and honorary professor at the Institute of Sustainable Heritage, University College London. She is a Fellow of the British Society for Geomorphology.