Professor David Paterson DPhil DSc appointed as Honorary Fellow of The Physiological Society
Merton is pleased to announce that Professor David Paterson DPhil DSc has been appointed as an Honorary Fellow of The Physiological Society of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
David Paterson is Professor of Physiology and a Fellow of Merton. Since 2016 he has been Head of the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics at Oxford (QS Ranked 1st) and is immediate Past President of The Physiological Society.
Honorary Fellowship is the highest honour that The Physiological Society presents to an individual and it recognises persons of distinction in science who have contributed to the advancement of physiology.
He is a graduate of the University of Otago (NZ), University of Western Australia, from which he was also recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree as a mark of recognition of achievement.
On his two awards, Professor Paterson commented;
‘It is a great honour to receive these two awards. The University of Western Australia launched my academic career to Oxford with a scholarship, which subsequently laid the foundation for my research and teaching career in physiology. To be recognized by your learned Society is a highlight for me’.
Professor Paterson is also a graduate of New College, University of Oxford where he completed his DPhil on chemoreception. Rising through the ranks at Oxford from a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church then Tutorial Fellowship at Merton College, he became Professor of Physiology over 20 years ago. As a cardiac neurobiologist, he is best known for his work linking the nervous system to heart rhythm, which was featured in the 2012 BBC Four documentary Heart v Mind: What Makes Us Human?
He served as Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology (2008-11) and The Journal of Physiology (2011-16) and has played a major role in academic publishing. In 2018 he co-authored with Neil Herring the text book Levick’s Introduction to Cardiovascular Physiology, 6th edition. Today, he is the European lead on an $8m transatlantic network of excellence grant from the Leducq Foundation that is focused on neuromodulation therapy and diagnostics.
David Paterson is an elected Member of Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe), and an Honorary Fellow of The Royal Society of New Zealand and in 2023 will receive an Honorary Doctorate of the University of Western Australia (HonDUniv in Medical Sciences).
