ANNUAL CELEBRATION
Honorary Doctors 2025
An honorary doctorate can be awarded without the recipient having previously defended a doctoral dissertation. It is awarded to researchers whom the university wishes to honour for their scientific work.
The Faculty of Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities nominates Stephen Kantrowitzfor an honorary doctorate. Stephen Kantrowitz is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, USA. In the field of 'race, citizenship, and Native-settler interaction in the nineteenth-century United States', Dr. Kantrowitz is the author of several groundbreaking monographs, including Ben Tillman & the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), which won the Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organisation of American Historians and was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book in 2000.
The Faculty of Science
The Faculty of Science nominates Jonathan L. Sesslerfor an honorary doctorate. Jonathan L. Sessler is a Professor of Chemistry at The University of Texas, Austin, USA.
His research areas are primarily supramolecular chemistry and medicinal chemistry, and he is particularly known for the development of 'texphyrins', a class of molecules that proved useful in the development of cancer treatment drugs. This breakthrough led to him to establish Pharmacyclics Inc. in 1995, which was acquired by AbbVie in 2015 for USD 21 billion.
The Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
The Faculty of Business and Social Sciences nominates Ran Abramitzky for an honorary doctorate. Ran Abramitzkyis Professor of Economics at Stanford University, USA. He is known for his pioneering research on immigration, inequality and economic history. His research has had a major impact on our understanding of how immigrants fare economically - both historically and today. His widely acclaimed book Streets of Gold has had a major impact on the public debate on immigration policy.
The Faculty of Health Sciences
The Faculty of Health Sciences nominates Anthony Smithfor an honorary doctorate. Anthony Smith isa professor in the field of telehealth and virtual healthcare at The University of Queensland, Australia. Professor Smith has developed and sustained an exemplary international track record in the establishment and evaluation of telehealth, principally in paediatrics and more recently in the adult and aged care disciplines. He is one of the most published telehealth authors globally, with >235 publications (cites=>13,400, h-index 53); and has been the scientific chair of the annual international conference on Successes and Failures in Telehealth conference for more than two decades.
The Faculty of Engineering
The Faculty of Engineering nominates Alexander Bremfor an honorary doctorate. Alexander Bremis Professor of Innovation Management and Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of Stuttgart.
His research impact is nothing short of remarkable. He is ranked 11th among 3,723 professors in the German-speaking business administration field (Wirtschaftswoche), and 72nd in the lifetime category. Internationally, he stands among the top 200 researchers worldwide in Business & Management according to the Stanford/Elsevier global citation ranking. His H-indexes - 50 (Scopus), 42 (Web of Science), and 69 (Google Scholar) - attest to the depth, breadth and sustained relevance of his scholarly work. His authorship of foundational textbooks in e.g. the field of innovations management, highlights his ability to translate complex ideas into accessible knowledge for students and practitioners alike.