CITATION
Chancellor,
Emeritus Professor Sir Peter Donnelly is a world-renowned geneticist and statistician whose pioneering research has advanced our understanding of human genetics and transformed biomedical science.
Sir Peter undertook a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours at The University of Queensland, graduating with the University Medal in 1980. He was then awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University, where he completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics.
Progressing into an academic career, Sir Peter was appointed to a Professorial Chair at the University of London in 1988, at the age of just 29. After a Professorship at the University of Chicago, he returned to the University of Oxford, serving as Head of the Department of Statistics from 1996 to 2001 and as Professor until 2020.
Sir Peter’s early academic work developed key aspects of coalescent theory, a mathematical model for tracing genetic lineages which revolutionised the approach to population genetics and laid the groundwork for most modern genetic studies.
From 2007 to 2018, Sir Peter was Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford, where he played a central role in groundbreaking national and international genomic research initiatives, including the International HapMap Project and the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium which identified genetic variants responsible for specific aspects of health and disease. His scientific papers have over 100,000 citations.
Sir Peter is also a co-founder, and since 2017, CEO, of Genomics Limited, a pioneering healthcare company that is using genetics to transform disease prevention and to power drug discovery. He was recently named as one of the Top 10 Entrepreneurs to have started a company after age 50.
His scientific leadership has earned him many awards, including the Mitchell Prize of the American Statistical Association, the Guy Medal in Silver from the Royal Statistical Society, the UQ Vice-Chancellor's Alumni Excellence Award, and lifetime achievement awards from the Genetics Society and the American Society of Human Genetics. In 2019, he was knighted for his services to the understanding of human genetics in disease and 3 years later, he was awarded the Royal Society’s prestigious Gabor Medal. In 2023, he was the Rodney Wylie Eminent Visiting Fellow at UQ and delivered the prestigious Rodney Wylie Eminent Visiting Fellowship Lectures series across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
Chancellor, I present to you Emeritus Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours of this University, Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Oxford, Doctor of Science honoris causa of the University of Melbourne, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, for the award of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, bestowed by the Senate of The University of Queensland.
