Mertonians recognised in Queen’s Birthday Honours

Each year, the Queen’s Birthday Honours List recognises the accomplishments of extraordinary people across the UK and beyond. Among the 2022 recipients were four alumni of Merton:

• Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington (1992), Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC): Research and Enterprise at the University of South Australia (UniSA) in Adelaide, and Adjunct Professor of History at the Australian National University, was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to tertiary education and governance as an administrator, leader and mentor. Marnie was the subject of one of our 40 Years profiles last year, and gave an online talk entitled 'The Ethics of History'.
• Professor Ruth Plummer FMedSci (1989), Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at Newcastle University, was awarded an MBE for services to Medicine. She is an oncologist specialising in treating patients with melanoma, and is Director of the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre within the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, which is a dedicated clinical trials unit based within the regional cancer centre. She leads the Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and also the Cancer Research UK Newcastle Cancer Centre.
• Prudence Dailey (1984) was awarded an MBE for services to the Book of Common Prayer. Prudence was Chairman of The Prayer Book Society between 2006 and 2020. She has also been a member of General Synod, the Church of England’s Parliament, representing Oxford Diocese as a lay member since 2000.
• Steve Drinkwater (1968) was awarded an MBE for services to Young People, in recognition of his 49 years of voluntary service as a supervisor and assessor of Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme expeditions. Steve is Chair of the Friends of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

The College is extremely proud of its alumni for the successes they have achieved in their areas of expertise, and the benefit this has brought to their communities and to the wider world.

We may have missed other Mertonians recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours: please do get in touch with development@merton.ox.ac.uk to let us know if this is the case.