Glittering prizes

The Institute of Physics has awarded the Glazebrook medal to Christopher Llewellyn Smith, director general of Cern; the Guthrie medal to George Bacon, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Sheffield; the Paul Dirac medal to Ian Percival, research professor in the department of physics, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London; the Charles Vernon Boys medal to Frances Ross, research staff member in the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, New York; the Bragg medal to Averil Macdonald, educational consultant and lecturer; the Charles Chree medal to John Harries, professor of earth observation in the department of physics, Imperial College, London; the Duddell medal to Rex Watton, technical consultant in the electronics sector, DERA, Malvern; the Kelvin medal to John Scott, senior lecturer in physics and director of public affairs, University College, Dublin; the Maxwell medal to Jeffrey Forshaw, lecturer in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Manchester; the Paterson medal to Thomas Harvey, senior physicist EPIGEM limited, Wilton Research Centre; and the Thomas Young medal to Peter Knight, professor of quantum optics and director of the laser consortium, Imperial College, London.

Nadine Senior, principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, has won a Creative Britain award, which recognises pioneers in their field who have made significant achievements against the odds.

Alfred Morris, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England, has been appointed to the selection panel of Avon and Somerset police authority. David Shattock, former chief constable of Avon and Somerset police, has been awarded an honorary degree of doctor of laws by the university.

Oxford University has awarded honorary degrees of doctor of civil law to Richard Levin, president of Yale, and Neil Rudenstine, president of Harvard, both former Rhodes scholars.

John Birt, director general of the BBC, has received an honorary doctorate from City University.

The 1998 University of Edinburgh/the Royal Bank of Scotland Alumnus of the Year is BBC foreign correspondent Allan Little.

Cathryn Mitchell, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, has won the Royal Astronomical Society's Blackwell prize for an outstanding PhD thesis on a topic in geophysics.