Honouring exceptional individuals

A Nobel Prize winning scientist, a key player in the discovery of the Higgs boson and a BBC presenter are among those to be honoured by Cardiff University at its annual degree ceremonies (14-18 July).

Receiving Honorary Degrees during Graduation week are Sir Paul Nurse and Dr Lyndon Evans.

Current President of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse is a geneticist and cell biologist who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle.

Welsh physicist, Dr Lyndon Evans, has spent his whole career in the field of high energy physics and particle accelerators. He was awarded a Special Fundamental Physics Prize in 2013 for his contribution to the discovery of the Higgs boson and led the team that designed, commissioned and built the Large Hadron Collider.

BBC journalist and presenter Jason Mohammad joins South Wales Police Chief Constable Peter Vaughan, architect Keith Griffiths, engineer Professor Chris Toumazou, SAGE co-founder Sara Miller McCune, economist Danny Blanchflower and music manager Tony Woodcock to be awarded Honorary Fellowships.

Honorary Fellowships and Degrees are awarded to individuals who have achieved international distinction in their field.

Approximately 6,000 students will graduate in this year's ceremonies, with more than 20,000 people being welcomed to Cardiff for the celebrations. The event is one of the biggest in the University's calendar and the ceremonies will be broadcast live on the Big Screen in the Hayes area of Cardiff and streamed on the University's website.

The Honorary Fellows for 2014 are:

Jason Mohammad is a journalist andgraduate of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. He isone of the main presenters on BBC Sport, having recently returned from the World Cup in Brazil, and hosts his own daily radio show on BBC Radio Wales.

Peter Vaughan QPM is the Chief Constable of South Wales Police, the force he joined in 1984 serving at every rank in all parts of the force area. He left in 2003 to join Wiltshire Constabulary but returned to South Wales Police in 2007 as Assistant Chief Constable and then Deputy Chief Constable. In 2010 he succeeded Barbara Wilding to get the top job. He is Vice President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and was awarded a Queen's Police Medal in 2013.

Keith Griffiths is an internationally respected designer specialising in high-rise, high-density environments who has spent most of his career designing for Asia. He is the Chairman of the global architectural practice of Aedas. Originally from St Davids in Pembrokeshire, Keith commenced a programme of purchase and restoration of important historic buildings in South West Wales in 2009 and has completed Roch Castle and Penrhiw Hotel with Twr y Felin Hotel under construction.

Professor Chris Toumazou has dedicated hislife's work to saving and improving lives through the invention of revolutionary, innovative and disruptive technology, the creation of a leading edge medical research institute and three commercial ventures to commercialise his research. He was made a Professor at Imperial College at 33; the youngest ever appointment at Imperial in recognition of his outstanding research. In 2013 he became London's first Regius Professor of Engineering conferred to Imperial College during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Danny Blanchflower is Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Economics Editor of the New Statesman and former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. He is also a part time Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He writes for the Independent as their economics columnist and is a Bloomberg TV contributor editor.

Tony Woodcock became President of New England Conservatory in June 2007, following a career as an orchestra manager in both the UK and the United States. After graduating from Cardiff University in 1974 he began a career in arts management with positions at the Welsh Arts Council and South East Arts, returning to Cardiff in 1984 as General Manager of the newly opened St David's Hall. He has held Chief Executive positions with a number of orchestras and is widely respected for revitalising the financial performance and artistic leadership of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra.

Sara Miller McCune is the founder of SAGE and is currently Executive Chairman of the company's Board of Directors. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit and an unwavering dedication to academia, 24-year-old Sara founded SAGE in 1965 in start a company that would allow scholars to disseminate quality research in their own voices and break new ground in emerging fields of study. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Centre for the Advanced Study in Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, based in Philadelphia.

Honorary Degrees:

Sir Paul Nurse is a geneticist and cell biologist who has worked on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled and how cell shape and cell dimensions are determined. He is President of the Royal Society and Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London and has served as Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK and President of Rockefeller University. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and has received the Albert Lasker Award and the Royal Society's Royal and Copley Medals. He was knighted in 1999 and received the Legion d'honneur in 2003.

Dr Lyndon Evans is currently a visiting professor at Imperial College London and Director of the Linear Collider Collaboration. Since 1993 he led the team that designed, built and commissioned the Large Hadron Collider. He was awarded a Special Fundamental Physics Prize in 2013 for his contribution to the discovery of the Higgs boson. He received an inaugural St David Award from the Welsh Assembly in March 2014.