OBE for Averil MacDonald

SEPnet is delighted that Averil MacDonald, its Diversity and Impact Lead, was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List announced on the 13th June. The award was for Services to Women in Science and for services to Public Engagement in Science.

Averil Macdonald holds both Diversity Lead and Impact lead roles in SEPnet and is Professor Emerita of Science Engagement at the University of Reading. In 2014 she published a report “Not for People like Me” on Under-represented groups in science, technology and engineering. A summary of the evidence: the facts, the fiction and what we should do next.

Averil has been awarded the international Bragg Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics, London. She chairs the UK Expert Group for Women in Science reporting on the success of the Government’s Strategy for Women in Science, and sits on the Equality Challenge Unit’s Athena SWAN Advisory Committee. She is also UK representative on the EU ‘Helsinki Group’ advising on good practice on gender equality in EU Horizon 2020 programme.