Geoff Palmer

Sir Godfrey Henry Oliver Palmer OBE (; born 9 April 1940) is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Life Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a human rights activist. He discovered the barley abrasion process while he was a researcher at the Brewing Research Foundation from 1968 to 1977. In 1998, Palmer became the fourth person, and the first European, to be honoured with the American Society of Brewing Chemists Award of Distinction, considered the "Nobel prize of brewing". In 1989, he became the first black professor in Scotland, becoming a professor emeritus after he retired in 2005. He was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honours. Early life Palmer was born in St Elizabeth, Jamaica. His father left home when he was seven years old; after his mother moved to work as a dressmaker in England in 1948, part of the Windrush generation, Palmer grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, in the care of his eight aunts.