Rutherford Memorial Lecture

The Rutherford Memorial Lecture was last awarded in 2018 and is no longer active. The lecture was named in honour of Ernest Rutherford FRS; it was first given in 1952.

See a list of all of our current medals and awards.

Professor Eric Wolff FRS delivered the 2018 Rutherford Memorial Lecture, 'Polar change – a perspective from the ice core palaeoclimate record'.

Sir John Sulston delivered the 2013 Rutherford Memorial Lecture ‘People and the planet – how can we all live and flourish on a finite Earth?’

Martin Rees delivered the 2010 Rutherford Memorial Lecture ‘Maths, maps and the human heart’.

See full list of all past winners of the Rutherford Memorial Lecture. 

The award

The lecture was named in honour of Ernest Rutherford FRS (PDF), who was born in New Zealand, and was first given in 1952.

This prize lecture is an exchange lecture between university centres in the Commonwealth, with at least one in three delivered in New Zealand.