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PA MediaScotland’s first black professor Sir Geoff Palmer has died, elderly 85.
Sir Geoff, chancellor and professor emeritus at Heriot-Watt University, moved to the United Kingdom from Jamaica as an adolescent and become referred to as each an educational and a human rights suggest.
Scottish Labour MSP Foysol Choudhury paid tribute to Sir Geoff on social media – describing him as a “father figure” and a “courageous voice for justice and equality”.
Prof Richard A Williams, the major and vice-chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, stated: “Sir Geoff was an inspiration not just to me but to colleagues past and present, and countless students around the world.
“His infectious enthusiasm and fervour for training was once not possible to forget about and this University was once all of the richer for having this sort of sturdy affiliation with him through the years.
“He will be dearly missed, and our thoughts are with his loved ones at this difficult time.”
In a social media submit Mr Choudhury stated he was once “deeply saddened” to proportion the scoop of the passing of Sir Geoff.
He added: He was once no longer just a prominent scientist & instructional, but additionally a brave voice for justice & equality. My honest condolences to his circle of relatives & all who knew and admired him
“May his soul rest in peace.”
He later thanked other folks for his or her messages of sympathy, announcing: “Geoff wasn’t just my dad’s best friend, he was a father figure to me, took me under his wing as a teen and continued to inspire me his entire life.
“It’s an enormous loss, however I’m thankful for the reminiscences.”
First Minister John Swinney said he was saddened to hear about Sir Geoff’s death.
He said: “Sir Geoff Palmer was once a pioneer and an excellent highbrow. He had a vastly certain affect on Scotland and shall be sorely neglected.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the academic was “a gentleman, a pioneer and an highbrow massive” who would be dearly missed.
PA MediaSir Geoff moved to London from St Elizabeth, Jamaica, in 1955, joining his mother in the city.
After studying at the University of Leicester, he completed his PhD in grain science and technology jointly with Heriot-Watt College and the University of Edinburgh in the 1960s.
Following a spell in Surrey, he returned to Heriot Watt in 1977, going on to become Scotland’s first black professor in 1989 before eventually retiring in 2005.
Sir Geoff’s instructional paintings noticed him invent the barley abrasion procedure – which comes to intentionally destructive the protecting husk of grains to hurry up the method of malting.
His efforts won him the American Society of Brewing Chemists Award of Distinction, an honour dubbed the Nobel prize of the beer world, while the success of his discovery attracted funding that established the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling as part of the Heriot-Watt campus.
PA MediaSir Geoff was also known as a passionate advocate for the rights of black communities, work which saw him invited by Edinburgh City Council to chair a review group looking at the city’s colonial legacy.
The group presented a number of recommendations, including that the city council should apologise for Edinburgh’s past role in slavery and colonialism.
In 2014 Sir Geoff was knighted for services to human rights, science and charity and four years later he he was appointed Jamaica’s first Honorary Consul in Scotland.
He was once the 2020 recipient of the Jamaican nationwide honour, the Order of Distinction (Commander Class) and in 2021 was once appointed chancellor of Heriot Watt college.
