It is with great sadness that we announce the unexpected passing last weekend of Professor John Stephenson, Chair of The Pirbright Institute’s Board of Trustees.
Professor Stephenson served as a Pirbright Trustee for five years before becoming the Chair of the Trustee Board in April 2019. He had a distinguished research career, with a long-standing interest in the interaction between virus infection and the immune system. In 1999 he joined the Department of Health as Chief Research Officer responsible for managing programmes on Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), vaccines, pandemic influenza and counter terrorism. In 2007 he was appointed Director of Research and Development for the Health Protection Agency. Professor Stephenson held honorary professorships at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the University of Liverpool and was an Independent Scientific and Technical Advisor (ISTA) for the Surgeon General.
Professor Bryan Charleston, Director of The Pirbright Institute, said: “We were shocked and deeply saddened to hear that Professor John Stephenson passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. He will be greatly missed. On behalf of everyone at Pirbright, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to his family at this challenging time.”
Professor Vince Emery, the vice-Chair of the Trustee Board will act as interim Chair.
Photo, top: In 2019 (left to right) Professor John Stephenson, Professor Bryan Charleston, Director of The Pirbright Institute, Sir John Kingman, former Chair of UKRI and Dr Michael Johnson, former Director of Capability at The Pirbright Institute stand beside the brick bull monument that celebrates sixty years of the World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
Photo, left: Professor John Stephenson (centre) visits Pirbright's HEPA deck with colleagues from UKRI and Pirbright.
Images copyright The Pirbright Institute, all rights reserved.
