Top health and safety executive to be awarded honorary degree

Date:

16 November 2011

Head of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and the public body's first ever female Chair, Judith Hackitt CBE, is to be awarded an honorary doctorate in Engineering by Leeds Metropolitan University as part of the Winter Graduation celebrations.

Judith battled against stereotypes to become a chemical engineer, after studying at Imperial College, London, as one of only four female students in her cohort. On completion of her degree, she joined Exxon Chemical in 1975 as a graduate engineer. Judith rapidly rose through a series of promotions, including taking on responsibility for process safety at Fawley, the largest refinery in the UK.

Judith moved to roles with European, and worldwide, before being appointed the Director General of the Chemical Industries Association, representing the interests of a key sector in the UK economy with a turnover exceeding £57 billion and more than 180,000 employees.

Judith left the Chemical Industries Association in 2006 to become the Implementation Director for the Chemistry for Europe project at the European Chemical Industry Council, and took a leading role in developing the REACH regulations, the European Union standards for the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals.

Having served on the Health and Safety Commission 2002 to 2005, in 2008 she became a council member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers in 2010.

An initiative with the Institution of Chemical Engineers saw Judith become a hit on YouTube, setting fire to her hands in front of a classroom of schoolchildren who were stunned to discover that science lessons could be exciting. In 2009 she starred in a TV debate about 'cotton wool' kids, arguing convincingly for practical experiments in the classroom rather than sterile theory sessions.

Judith's dedication has not gone unrecognised and in 2006 she was awarded a CBE for services to health and safety.

Winter Graduation is taking place on Wednesday 16 November at the University's Headingley Campus.

Notes to editors

1. Leeds Metropolitan University has 30,000 students and 3, 000 staff.
2. The University has achieved its best ever Research Assessment Exercise results. Sports-Related Studies is in the top 6 institutions in the country with research rated at the highest levels of 4* and 3*.
3. Leeds Met has been rated the top university in the UK for its language support, accommodation quality and learning spaces in the 2010 Autumn Wave of the International Student Barometer and sixth in the world for the quality of its lectures.
4. The University's award-winning learning environments include Broadcasting Place, voted the best tall building in the world in 2010 by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and also winner of the 2010 Leeds Architecture Awards New Building category, the iconic Rose Bowl building, awarded Best Commercial Property Development in the 2009 Yorkshire Property Awards and the pioneering Carnegie Village student accommodation.
5. Leeds Metropolitan is one of only a handful of UK universities to have been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard.

Press enquiries

For further details please contact Carrie Braithwaite in the News and Media team at Leeds Met on 0113 812 3022 or email c.braithwaite@leedsmet.ac.uk

Issued by Leeds Metropolitan University News and Media team