Spouse(s) Peter W. Yellowlees Children Sarah, Mark | Name Lesley Yellowlees | |
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Full Name Lesley Jane Yellowlees Website www.chem.ed.ac.uk/staff/academic-staff/professor-lesley-yellowlees Institutions Royal Society of ChemistryUniversity of QueenslandUniversity of GlasgowUniversity of Edinburgh Thesis Spectro-electrochemical studies on luminescent complexes (1983) Notable awards FRSE (2012)MBE (2005)CBE (2014) | ||
Lesley yellowlees 175 faces of chemistry
Lesley Jane Yellowlees, CBE, FRSE, HonFRSC (born 1953) is a British inorganic chemist and was the first female president of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2012–14.
Contents
- Lesley yellowlees 175 faces of chemistry
- Prof lesley yellowlees the gender agenda in science and engineering
- Early life and education
- Career
- Honours and awards
- References
Prof lesley yellowlees the gender agenda in science and engineering
Early life and education
Yellowlees was born in 1953 in London, moving to Edinburgh at the age of 9 and attending St Hilary's Girls' School. Her father worked for Rank Hovis McDougall, and she has two sisters. She completed her higher education at the University of Edinburgh, gaining a BSc in Chemical Physics in 1975, and PhD in Inorganic Electrochemistry in 1983. She was the only woman graduate in her undergraduate class.
Career
Her first job was as an administrator in the National Health Service, but after moving to Brisbane, Australia, with her husband, she went into electrochemistry research, and subsequently worked in the University of Queensland, and in University of Glasgow, returning to the University of Edinburgh to do a PhD on solar cell chemistry, becoming a demonstrator in 1986 and a lecturer in 1989 and becoming Professor of Inorganic Electrochemistry in 2005. She was the first female head of chemistry in the university. She is also Vice-Principal of the University (again the first female one) and Head of the College of Science and Engineering. She is married to Peter W. Yellowlees, a Chartered Accountant, and they have two children.
Honours and awards
Yellowlees was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2005 and an Honorary Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2012. and is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.
To mark the International Year of Chemistry, IUPAC selected 25 women including Yellowlees for the Distinguished Women Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Award.
She took over the presidency of the Royal Society of Chemistry on 4 July 2012 for a two-year term (she was succeeded by Professor Dominic Tildesley).
The National Portrait Gallery has two portraits of her. There is also a painting of her by Peter Edwards in Burlington House, the headquarters of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Yellowlees was appointed MBE in 2005 for services to science and CBE in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to chemistry.
Yellowlees holds Honorary Doctorates from Heriot-Watt University (awarded in 2012), and Edinburgh Napier University (awarded in 2016).
Yellowlees was named the University of Edinburgh Alumnus of the Year 2013 in honour of her research, leadership and her work as an advocate for women in STEM subjects.