The Head of Education at the Fitzwillam Museum and an eminent University astronomer have each been honoured with an OBE in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
The Head of Education at the Fitzwillam Museum and an eminent University astronomer have each been honoured with an OBE in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
The Head of Education at the Fitzwillam Museum and an eminent University astronomer have each been honoured with an OBE in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Frances Sword has worked at the Fitzwilliam Museum for twenty years. She has built, from scratch, an award winning education service. She has led the development of innovative teaching methods and programmes of work for a wide cross-section of the community. Her work, be it for school pupils, people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, people recovering from mental illness, people on the cancer wards of Addenbrooke's hospital, teachers, University students or visiting families, aims to engage and involve everyone in the joys of the Fitzwilliam's wonderful collections.
"I am absolutely thrilled to receive such an honour," said Frances. "I regard it as an extraordinary accolade for my marvellous team at the Fitzwilliam and all the staff of the Museum without whom none of this could happen. It has been a wonderfully enriching experience bringing this fabulous collection alive for so many different types of people. Reaching many of these people would have been impossible without the dedicated work of all our partners and, for me, the award of this honour shows growing recognition of all those working in the field of museum education throughout the country."
Fitzwilliam Museum Director Duncan Robinson welcomed the news: 'Frances Sword has been a wonderful colleague. I know that many thousands of people join us at the Museum in congratulating Frances on her honour, which recognises her outstanding contribution towards the enrichment of so many lives through art.'
Professor Andrew Fabian FRS (1996) has been a Royal Society Research Professor at the Institute of Astronomy since 1982, researching clusters of galaxies, accreting black holes and other topics in X-ray astronomy. He is Vice Master of Darwin College and Managing Editor of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
On hearing of the award he said: "I am delighted and very honoured to have been given this award. I would like to pay tribute to my staff and students here."
The Institute of Astronomy was formed in 1972 from an amalgamation of Cambridge University Observatory (1823) the Solar Physics Observatory (1912) and the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (1967). It is a department of the University of Cambridge and is engaged in teaching and research in the fields of theoretical and observational Astronomy. A wide class of theoretical problems are studied, ranging from models of quasars and of the evolution of the universe, through theories of the formation and evolution of galaxies and stars, X-ray sources and black holes.
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