Stockholm university

Honorary doctorates

The awarding of an honorary doctorate is an expression of the University's appreciation of outstanding contributions in one or more of the University's areas of academic activity.

The Deputy Vice President appoints the honorary doctors for the academic area after proposals from and discussions within the faculties.

 

Honorary doctorates 2023

Humanities

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer. Photo: Greg Funnell

Richard Dyer is professor emeritus in film studies at King’s College, London. Since the 1970s, he has held a prominent position as one of the most influential film scholars internationally. While being a pioneer in critical studies of representation focusing on aspects such as sexuality, gender and race in both television and film, he is also a specialist in a wide range of areas such as film history, film and television genres, film stars and celebrities, Italian film, film music and Hollywood film. Since the early 1990s, Dyer has contributed to Stockholm University and its teaching and research milieus with his extensive knowledge.

Susanne Ljung

Susanne Ljung. Photo: Peter Jönsson

Susanne Ljung is a journalist and has written about music, travel, film and not least about fashion. During the years 1997–2001, she was editor-in-chief of the Swedish lifestyle magazine Damernas värld and since 2016 she has been a fashion columnist for Dagens Nyheter. Since 2007, she has been the host of the radio program Stil in Sveriges Radio, in which she discusses and examines the many expressions and phenomena of fashion. Through a never-ending and contagious curiosity, Susanne Ljung contributes to arousing an interest in fashion’s many meanings beyond its surface and commerce, on many occasions in conversation with employees from Stockholm University.

Law

Birke Häcker

Birke Häcker. Photo: Laurenz Bostedt

Birke Häcker is professor of law at the Universität Bonn, Germany, where she is also Schlegel Professor and Director for the Institute for International Private and Comparative Law. After receiving her Oxford Law Degree, she was an Examination Fellow at All Souls College. She obtained a Diplom-Law Degree (Bonn 2004) and a Ph.D (Oxford 2007). Until 2022 she was the Director for the Institute of European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford and has played a decisive role in the collaboration between the Law Faculties at Oxford and Stockholm.

Social Sciences

Jim Albrecht

Jim Albrecht. Photo: Private

Jim Albrecht is a professor of economics at Georgetown University, USA. His research includes both theoretical and empirical studies of the labor market based on search theory.
Jim Albrecht has a long list of publications dating back several decades. He has also conducted research on issues related to the Swedish labor market, particularly issues related to gender differences on the labor market and how such differences interact with the design of parental leave system.

Janet Gornick

Janet Gornick. Photo: The City University of New York

Janet Gornick is a professor of political science and sociology at the City University of New York, USA. Her research concerns social inequality between countries and especially links between social policy, gender differences in the labor market and income distribution. She has been a key person within LIS, formerly called the Luxembourg Income Study, a database consisting of harmonized income and wealth data from around 50 countries, of which Sweden is one. The database is available to researchers from member countries.

Susan Vroman

Susan Vroman. Photo: Private

Susan Vroman is a professor of economics at Georgetown University, USA. A large part of her research focuses on unemployment and search theory. Susan Vroman has an extensive publication list dating back several decades. Her research has also been focused on the Swedish labor market, particularly with a focus on gender differences in the labor market and how the design of parental leave policies interacts with these differences.

Science

Ian Brooks

Ian Brooks. Photo: Private

Professor Ian Brooks, Leeds University, is a leading expert on the turbulent exchange of energy, gases and particles at the atmosphere-ocean interface. He works mostly with field observations over the ocean at high wind speed and over Arctic sea ice but also endeavors to evaluate and improve numerical weather and climate models. Ian Brooks has participated in several Arctic expeditions on the Swedish research icebreaker Oden and is a valued collaborator for several Stockholm University scientists.

Jan Ellenberg

Jan Ellenberg. Photo: EMBL

Dr. Jan Ellenberg is Head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit and Head of the Imaging Centre at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. He is a world-renowned molecular cell biologist whose research has unraveled some of the fundamental processes controlling cell division and nuclear organization. Jan Ellenberg has made important contributions in the establishment of advanced imaging facilities in Europe, by coordinating the establishment of the Euro-BioImaging ERIC. He has been a source of inspiration for the establishment of advanced intravital imaging at SU and has acted as an essential adviser for SciLifeLab infrastructures.

Peter Sarnak

Peter Sarnak. Photo: New York Photo

Peter Sarnak is Gopal Prasad Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, USA. His work in number theory and mathematical analysis is famous for great depth and tremendous breadth, with a vision that has shaped whole lines of research, including applications such as expander graphs and quantum computing. He has served for many years as editor of the preeminent journals, notably Annals of mathematics. His honours include the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2014) and the Sylvester Medal (2019). He is a Fellow of the (UK) Royal Society and a Member of the (US) National Academy of Sciences, and he has also worked to develop the mathematical sciences in his native South Africa.  

Dame Janet M. Thornton

Janet M. Thornton. Photo: EMBL-EBI

Professor Dame Janet M. Thornton has contributed significantly to structural bioinformatics by increasing our fundamental understanding of the structure and function of proteins and how they contribute to disease and ageing. She has uniquely combined the analysis of structural features with the development of prediction methods. Together with Christine Orengo, the popular database CATH was developed. Her studies of sidechain conformation and stereochemistry were developed with Roman Laskowski into a tool, PROCHECK, widely used for evaluating the quality of experimentally defined protein structures. With Orengo and David Jones she developed methods for protein structure prediction. She was the director of the European Bioinformatics Institute from 2001 to 2015 and initiated the European infrastructure ELIXIR. 

Conferment ceremony on 29 September 2023

The honorary doctorates are conferred at the coming Inauguration and Conferment Ceremony in Stockholm City Hall, Friday 29 September at 17.00.

An honorary doctorate is an expression of the University’s appreciation of outstanding contributions in one or more of the University’s areas of academic activity. The awarded honorary doctor should be affiliated with Stockholm University or have contributed to the University’s activities in some way.

Inauguration of New Professors and Conferment of Doctoral Degrees

 

Who can be appointed honorary doctor?

The proposed person should be affiliated with the University as an honorary doctorate is an expression of the appreciation of outstanding contributions in one of the university's academic areas. Honorary doctorates may not be awarded in return for financial contributions, gifts and the like.

A person who has already been awarded a PhD in Sweden within a certain academic area may not be awarded an honorary doctorate in the same area. It is, however, quite possible to appoint a doctor of philosophy, for example, to an honorary doctor of Laws and vice versa. It is not usual that someone be appointed an honorary doctorate at the same university that he or she graduated from.There is no requirement that an honorary doctor has obtained an academic degree.

In the case of foreign nationals with a foreign degree, there is no obstacle to awarding an honorary doctorate in the same area as the foreign degree.

The proposed person should not be an honorary doctor in the same field at another university or higher education institution in Sweden. However, a person may, for example, be an honorary doctor of philosophy at one university and honorary doctor of medicine at another.

An honorary doctorate cannot be awarded posthumously.

 

Honorary doctors, previous years

The first honorary doctors were appointed at Stockholm University, then Stockholm University College, in 1909. All honorary doctors from this year onwards will be compiled and published on this web page.

Here is a list of Stockholm University's honorary doctors from 1994 onwards (published on the Swedish website).

Honorary doctorates at Stockholm University 1994-2022

 

Contact

Email: doktorspromotion@su.se

Ingrid Harris, deputy Master of Ceremonies
Phone: +46-8-164908

Visiting Address:
Spökslottet, Drottninggatan 116

Postal address:
Stockholm University
Office of the President
SE-106 91 Stockholm

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