Five members of St John’s College have been awarded King’s New Year Honours, which recognise the achievements and public service of people across the UK.
Dr Tim Allison, a retired NHS Highland Director of Public Health, is made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the NHS in Scotland.
Dr Allison came up to St John’s as an undergraduate in 1984 to study Medical Sciences and also read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, before going on to have a long career in public service.
He served as Director of Public Health and Policy at NHS Highland from July 2020 until his retirement in summer 2025, playing a leading role in guiding the region through the Covid pandemic.
Dr Allison also drove forward work on health inequalities and inclusion in one of Scotland’s most geographically challenging areas. He produced a series of influential public health reports, establishing a strategic direction that continues to shape NHS Highland’s approach to population health today.
Before that, he was a Director of Public Health in England for 17 years, working in both local government and the NHS. He is a former honorary secretary of the Association of Directors of Public Health (UK) and has extensive experience in epidemiological research and hospital medicine.
Dr Allison’s professional interests include musculoskeletal disease, coastal health and physical activity, and he has organised recreational public health cycling events.
He said: “Public health work is always a joint enterprise relying on teams and communities to improve and protect health. So the award reflects wider work over many years.
“During my time at St John’s I studied Medical Sciences for Part I and Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic for a year for Part II. This unusual combination gave me a wide education and a grounding in areas such as critical analysis and communication.
“This has really helped in the varied tasks that I have needed to undertake which in recent years have ranged from nuclear emergency planning to advice for reality television production.”
Professor Gideon Henderson FRS, an internationally-renowned geochemist and Honorary Fellow of St John’s, receives a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to science.
Graduating in Earth Sciences from Oxford, Professor Henderson gained his PhD at St John’s in 1994 before moving to Columbia University as a research scientist. Since 2006 he has been Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford.
His revolutionary research focuses on the carbon cycle, the oceans, and on understanding the mechanisms driving climate change. For a decade he co-led GEOTRACES – a global programme that has transformed understanding of links between ocean chemistry, biology and climate. He chaired an influential report for the Royal Society, of which he was made a Fellow in 2013.
Alongside his research, Professor Henderson was until recently Chief Scientific Adviser and Director General for Science and Analysis at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Professor Henderson said: “I was delighted to be honoured with a CBE for services to science, both at a personal level and for the recognition the award gives for science and its importance to informing policy.
“My journey as a scientist really began in my PhD years at Cambridge, where my awareness of how science interfaces with other disciplines and with society was shaped by the wide range of fantastic people I met at St John’s. That grounding has served me well through my career in academia and as an adviser in government.
"Providing scientific advice to policy makers can sometimes be frustrating; policy must balance many different factors so what seems sensible from a scientific point of view is not always the direction taken.
"The award of a King's Honour reassures that scientific advice – based on research from many excellent environmental scientists – is recognised and valued in government, and that science can help us find solutions to the triple challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.”
Professor Tamsin Mather FRS, who is also a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, is appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to volcanology and to the promotion of science.
As an undergraduate at St John’s, she studied Natural Sciences from 1995-1999 (MSc), going on to gain an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge in 2004 before moving to Oxford as a lecturer.
A full professor at Oxford since 2014, her work brings together expertise in volcanology/magmatism, atmospheric chemistry and paleoclimatology/stratigraphy and she tackles problems ranging from acute volcanic hazards and air pollution events in the present-day to the role of volcanism in the long-term evolution of our planet’s environment.
Professor Mather’s work is unlocking new insights into the potential links between large-scale magmatism and past crises such as mass extinctions.
She sits on several advisory committees for government and venture capital and participates in the promotion of public understanding of science via festivals, TV, radio, podcasts and children’s books. Professor Mather’s own debut trade book Adventures in Volcanoland was published in 2024.
In 2018 she won the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture based on her achievements in volcanology and her ability to communicate her research to the public and was elected to the Royal Society in 2024.
Canon John Naylor, a conductor, singer and organist, and a Lay Canon of Lichfield Cathedral, is made a Medallist of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) for services to music.
Canon Naylor, who in 1966 came to Cambridge to read English at St John’s, where he was also a Choral Scholar, is Music Director of The Open University Chapel Choir, The Lydian Singers – which he founded in 1980 – and Nantwich Choral Society. Over the past 40 years he has conducted visiting choirs in most of the cathedrals in the UK.
After an early career in industrial marketing and strategic planning he became chief executive and then chairman of several UK and international companies.
Following a successful business career, Canon Naylor now devotes much of his activities to music and church administration. He was appointed a Lay Canon of Lichfield Cathedral in 2023, he was Chairman of Lichfield Diocesan Board of Finance for 11 years, and a member of General Synod for five years.
He is currently Chair of Members of the Three Spires Trust – a Church of England Multi-Academy Trust committed to working within a respectful and compassionate environment.
Deputy Jayne Ozanne, Deputy of the States of Guernsey and campaigner, is awarded an OBE for services to religion and the LGBTQ+ community.
A Research Fellow at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, she arrived as an undergraduate to study Mathematics at St John’s in 1987.
Her OBE recognises her sustained work tackling discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of sexuality and gender in religious organisations.
Now Deputy of the States of Guernsey – her childhood home – Deputy Ozanne founded the Ozanne Foundation, which worked with religious organisations around the world to address prejudice and discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community.
She was particularly active in efforts to secure an international ban on pseudo-scientific conversion practices – or attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity – founding the UK Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition in 2020. She also founded the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives and served as an adviser to the UK government as a member of the LGBT Advisory Panel.
A founding member of the Archbishops’ Council for the Church of England (1999-2004), she is once again a member of General Synod where she is involved in campaigning for a range of issues impacting those who are marginalised and excluded.
Deputy Ozanne said: “It is critical that we do all we can to highlight the harm that so many LGBT+ people tragically face in settings where they are told that who they are is unacceptable, causing deep psychological trauma due to unbearable levels of self-hatred and shame.
“I am therefore keen to accept this award in the hope that these religious organisations will recognise the seriousness of this issue.”
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