New Year's Honour for Professor Paul O'Brien

Professor Paul O’Brien FRS FRSC has been granted a CBE for services to science and engineering.

As well as being a leading member of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Council for many years, he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 2013.

Clare Viney, Royal Society of Chemistry director of membership and external affairs, says: "Paul O'Brien is rightly recognised as one of the world's leading inorganic materials scientists and is respected throughout the chemical sciences community. He has enriched the lives of many people during his illustrious career, be that as researcher, mentor, collaborator and entrepreneur.

"Paul has actively contributed to the Royal Society of Chemistry over many years, so it is hugely pleasing to see him recognised so publicly for the service he has given to science."

Professor O’Brien has been leading a Royal Society Department for International Development (DFID) programme in Africa since February 2015, consolidating existing collaborations in the area of materials chemistry involving the UK, Cameroon, Ghana and South Africa. Joint publications exist between the UK and all of these partners, and independently between South Africa and the Cameroon.

Paul is no stranger to honours, having received the first Royal Society of Chemistry Peter Day Award in 2009. In that case he was rewarded for his "work on the preparation of precursors for semiconductor thin films and nanoparticles".

He is also well known for having jointly founded leading nanotechnology company Nanoco, in order to progress the quantum dot technology he previously developed at the University of Manchester and Imperial College, London.