his career he supervised numerous PhD students including Jim Dunlop, Stephen Gull, Simon Lilly and John Peacock. Awards and honours Longair has received numerous awards, including: 1986 - the first Britannica Award for the Dissemination of Learning and the Enrichment of Life 1990 - In December 1990, he delivered the series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Young People on television on the topic 'The Origins of Our Universe'. 1991 - From 1991 to 1992 he was President of the Physics Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 1994 - Awarded the 1994 Science Prize of the Saltire Society-Royal Bank of Scotland Annual award. 1994 - Chairman of the Gemini Board, the international project to build 8-metre telescopes in the northern and southern hemispheres, for the years 1994 and 1995. 1995 - In 1995, he was Selby Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and took a lecture demonstration entitled 'Measuring the Fundamentals' around all the state capitals of Australia. 1995 - Chairman of the Space Telescope Science Institute Council for 1995–6. 1996 - President of the Royal Astronomical Society 1996–8. 2000 - Appointed CBE in the 2000 New Year Honours List. 2004 - Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). References External links 1941 births Living people Scottish astronomers Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Harvard University staff Academics of the University of Edinburgh Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge Jacksonian Professors of Natural Philosophy Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of the University of St Andrews Scottish physicists Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Scientists from Dundee People educated at Morgan Academy Alumni of the University of Dundee Scientists of the Cavendish Laboratory