Professor John Laver FBA

John Laver spent most of his academic career at the University of Edinburgh (1966-2001) where he gained a PhD and DLitt in Phonetics. As Professor of Phonetics he was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Speech Technology Research of which he was Director (1984-89) and then Chairman (1991-94). He served for three years as Vice-Principal for Research. From 2001 to his retirement in 2004 he was Research Professor of Speech Sciences and Vice-Principal at Queen Margaret University College (now QMU). He has honorary degrees from Sheffield, De Montfort and Queen Margaret Universities, and Trinity College, Dublin and has held honorary professorships at York and Dundee Universities. A staunch advocate of the economic, social and cultural benefits of the Humanities and of interdisciplinary research, he was the founding Chairman of the British Academy's Humanities Research Board (1994-98), and played a key role in making the case for the establishment of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1994 he was awarded the Society's Bicentenary Medal in 2004 and its Royal Medal in 2007. In 1999 he was awarded the CBE for services to Phonetics and the Humanities.