Plenary Speakers

Professor Sir Geoff (Godfrey) Palmer was born in Jamaica in 1940. He migrated to London in 1955 and unexpectedly had to return to school because he was one month younger than the school leaving age of 15 years. He was designated ‘educationally sub-normal’ and attended a Secondary Modern School. In 1958 he secured a job as a Junior Laboratory Technician at Queen Elizabeth College where Professor Palmer ‘changed’ his name from Godfrey to Geoff and assisted his entrance to Leicester University in 1961. 

He gained an Honours Degree in Botany in 1964 from the University of Leicester, a PhD Degree in 1967 from the University of Edinburgh and the then Heriot-Watt College. He also completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in grain science at the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University in 1968. At the Brewing Research Foundation (1968 to 1977) he used the fundamental research from his PhD to develop the industrial process of Barley Abrasion and pioneered the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope to study cereal grains. In 1977, he returned to the Heriot-Watt University as a staff member, gained a DSc degree for his research work in 1985, retired in 2005 and became Chancellor of the Heriot-Watt University in 2021.

He sits on the Boards of Community Organisations and has received Honorary Degrees from various academic institutions, and is an honorary graduate of the University of Glasgow. His awards include an OBE (2003) and Knighthood (2014) for his scientific research, charity, and human rights work. He was the fifth recipient and the first European resident to gain a distinguished research award from the American Society of Brewing Chemist, which is considered the 'Nobel prize' of brewing. His work on the history of the enslavement of African people as British slaves has led him to work on slavery projects with the University of Glasgow and to chair projects set up by the City of Edinburgh Council, the Scottish Government on Museums and the University of Edinburgh. In 2021 the University of Leicester gave him its Diversity and Inclusion award as part of its centenary celebrations. He has published books on race relations and cereal science and technology. He is the first Honorary Consul for Jamaica in Scotland and the Freeman of Midlothian. In 2021 he received the Pride of Scotland’s Lifetime Award and in 2022 he was made an Honorary Keeper of the Quaich by the distilling industry. Sir Geoff has researched, written and lectured extensively on Scotland’s black slavery history. He was also appointed Jamaica’s first Honorary Consul (CD) in Scotland.