Credit: Glasgow Guardian / Madeleine Baker
News Editor
Two academics from the University of Glasgow have been awarded OBEs in this year’s New Years Honours List. Professor Jeremy Bagg, Head of the Dental School, and Professor Sally-Ann Cooper, Professor of Learning Disabilities, received the honour for services to dental education and services to science and medicine respectively.
Head of the Dental School since 2005, Professor Bagg is also Vice-Dean of the Dental Faculty of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons, President of the Glasgow Odontological Society, Chair of the Steering Group of the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme, and a member of the UK Advisory Panel for Health Care Workers Infected with Blood-borne Viruses. He joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in 1991, after leaving his lecturer post at Cardiff Dental School. He was previously Chairman of the National Dentistry Advisory Committee at the Scottish Government Health Department, and was awarded the Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health for his contribution to public health microbiology in 2004.
He said: “Since 2005 I have been privileged to work with an outstanding team of staff and students at Glasgow Dental School and, with support from both the University of Glasgow and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, we have built a vibrant and strongly-performing school. This award reflects the hard work and commitment of a large number of colleagues and friends and I see it very much as a team result. I am delighted.”
Professor Cooper has published extensive research advancing the scientific understanding of the health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities. In conjunction with working as a Consultant Psychiatrist at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, she has established and is Director of the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory, chaired the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on mental health problems in people with learning disabilities, and developed diagnostic criteria for classification of mental ill-health for people with learning disabilities.
She commented: “I am surprised and delighted at this honour, and very pleased indeed in the importance it recognises of working to improve the health and lives of people with learning disabilities.”
