Association of Open University Graduates

Sir John Horlock is an authority on turbomachinery and power plants and his books on axial compressors, axial turbines, actuator disk theory, combined heat and power and combined power plants are widely used and cited. He founded Whittle Laboratory at Cambridge in 1973 and acted as its first Director. He was the Vice-Chancellor firstly at Salford University and subsequently of the Open University. Sir John has been an advisor to Government and industry for forty years and has been a non-executive director of several UK companies. He was recently Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society and was knighted for services to science, engineering and education in 1996.

The Vice Chancellor John Horlock AOUG Award for the Faculty of Science was established in 1991 and this year was awarded to Ms. Suzanne Simmons. Suzanne was the 16th recipient of this award and was introduced by Dr. Sotiris Missailidis.
Suzanne obtained a BSc degree in Life Sciences with the Open University in 2005. She has achieved this in just two years after obtaining an HNC in Applied Biology from Westminster University. Both awards were obtained by means of day release while otherwise working full time as a trainee technician in the OU Biology department. After obtaining her BSc, Suzanne decided to peruse a PhD and her project is concerned with the development of aptamers as diagnostic and therapeutic agents mainly for applications against cancer. Her supervisors have stated, ‘as a highly self motivated , dedicated and hard working post graduate student we believe
that Suzanne is a worthy recipient of the AOUG  award.'

Previous Winners
2007 Claire Kotecki
2006 Amanda Smith
2004 Jayne Turner
2003 Ashley Seabrook
2002 John Barker
2001 Mark Gardener
2000 Sharon Moore
1999 Andrew Bedder
1997 Jill Clarke
1996 Clive Roberts
1995 Peter Taylor
1994 Peter Stokes
1993 Stephen Hopkins
1992 Bob Steele
1991 Jill Eyres