Commencement Speaker

 

 

Sir Richard Trainor

 

An honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, is conferred upon Sir Richard Trainer, for outstanding achievements and contributions to academia, research and scholarship.

Since 2004, Professor Sir Richard Trainor has been Principal and Professor of Social History at King’s College London where Dr. Rosalind Franklin was a scholar and researcher. Prior to his appointment at King’s College London, Professor Trainor was Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Social History at the University of Greenwich.

He received a BA summa cum laude in American Civilization at Brown University and earned his doctorate at Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a junior research fellow. In 1979, he moved to the Department of Economic History at Glasgow University, where he subsequently became Professor, Dean of Social Sciences and Vice-Principal.

His published research has focused on 19th and 20th century British elites, especially in industrialized urban areas. He has also been heavily involved in computer-based teaching in subjects related to history, as well as in national initiatives to improve teaching more generally. He has published many papers on these topics.

Professor Trainor is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of Merton College Oxford, of Trinity College of Music, and the Institute of Historical Research. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent. He was a member of the US-UK Fulbright Commission 2003-2009, and a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council 2006-2011. Between 2007 and 2009, Professor Trainor was President of Universities UK, which represents the heads of all the universities in Britain. During that period, he jointly chaired a US/UK study group promoting closer academic ties between the two countries, an initiative in which he is still active. He was knighted in 2010 for services to higher education.

Professor Trainor continues to foster the academic excellence for which King’s College London is known and supports the research inquiry that led to Dr. Franklin’s momentous discovery.

To Be Announced for 2011