UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka and two Nobel Prize laureates, Professor Daniel McFadden and Professor Dr. Erwin Neher, were awarded honorary Doctorate of Science degrees on Tuesday by the prestigious University College London. UCL Registrar Martin Butcher cited their outstanding contributions to science and humanity. Mrs. Tibaijuka, who herself holds a Doctorate of Science in Agricultural Economics, in 2002 became the first African women appointed Under-Secretary General of the United Nations. On Tuesday, she was awarded a Doctorate of Science in Engineering. Prof. McFadden, an American economist and statistician, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in the year 2000 for his work in microeconomics and discrete choice analysis, was awarded a Doctorate of Science in economics. Prof. Neher of Germany, widely considered one of Europe's foremost biomedical scientists, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1991 jointly with Bert Sackmann on the properties of ion channels responsible for the conduction of impulses in the nervous system. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Medicine. UCL, founded in 1826, has a student body from more than 150 countries around the world and is noted for its research quality. Hormones and vitamins were discovered at UCL, as were the inert gases neon and argon, and the thermionic valve, which made radio possible. More recently, the first trans-Atlantic Internet connection was made at UCL. |
