Professor Geoff Palmer

Heriot Watt University

Professor Geoff Palmer was born in Jamaica. He emigrated at 14 years old to join his mother in London in 1955. He was assessed as educationally sub-normal and sent to a Secondary Modern School. Because of his cricketing abilities he was transferred from his Secondary Modern School to a Grammar School in Islington, London. He worked as a junior laboratory technician in London from 1957 to 1961. With help from his employer he entered Leicester University in 1961 and grained a Hons degree in Botany in 1964. After working in a restaurant for six months he started his PhD at Heriot Watt and Edinburgh Universities in Edinburgh in 1964.

In 1968 he worked as a research scientist at the Brewing Research Foundation in England and became a lecturer at the Heriot Watt University in 1977. He gained his DSc in 1985 and was made Professor in 1990. He has produced a host of brewing and distilling students that now run the industry worldwide. He has travelled extensively to teach in countries that could not afford to send students abroad for education.

Professor Palmer was awarded the OBE for his contribution to grain science, the American Association of Brewing Chemist Research Award which no other European has won and only three awards were given before it was awarded to him.

Geoff has been involved in race relations work since 1969 and serves on many community committees. He is the author of many scientific papers and has produced a definitive book on grain science and has published two books on race relations. He was awarded the William Darling Good Citizen Award of the Edinburgh City Council and the Black Enterprise Award for his work on race relations.

 

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