Sir Geoff Palmer 
Professor Sir Geoff (Godfrey) Palmer was born in Jamaica in 1940. He migrated to London in 1955 and unexpectedly had to return to school because he was one month younger than the school-leaving age of 15 years. He was designated Educationally Sub-Normal and attended a Secondary Modern School in London. In 1958, he secured a job as a Junior Laboratory Technician at Queen Elizabeth College. After his university applications failed, Professor Chapman assisted his entrance to Leicester University in 1961. He gained an Honours Degree in Botany in 1964 from Leicester University, a PhD in 1967 from Edinburgh University and Heriot-Watt College in grain science and technology and completed a Post-Doc Fellowship in 1968. Working at the Brewing Research Foundation (1968 to 1977), he used the fundamental research from his PhD to develop the innovative and patented industrial process of Barley Abrasion and pioneered the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope to study cereal grains. In 1977, he returned to the Heriot-Watt University as a staff member, gained a DSc degree for his research work in 1985, promoted the agricultural development of the cereal grain sorghum in Africa, secured financial support from the industry to set up the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling (ICBD), retired in 2005 and became Chancellor of the Heriot-Watt University in 2021.
He sits on the Boards of Community Organisations and has received Honorary Degrees from various Academic Institutions. His awards include an OBE (2003) and a Knighthood (2014) for his scientific research, charity and human rights work. He was the fifth recipient and the first European resident to gain a distinguished research award from the American Society of Brewing Chemist, regarded as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of the industry. His work on the history of the enslavement of African people as British slaves has led him to work on slavery projects with Glasgow University and to chair projects set up by Edinburgh City Council, the Scottish Government on Museums and the University of Edinburgh. In 2022, Leicester University gave him its Diversity and Inclusion award and named a building after him. He has published books on race relations and cereal science and technology. He is the first Honorary Consul for Jamaica in Scotland and the Freeman of Midlothian. In addition to receiving other important community awards, American brewers in 2020 created the Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship award. In 2021, he gained the Pride of Scotland’s Life Time Award, was elected Honorary Keeper of the Quaich by the distilling industry and received the rare Edinburgh Award in 2022. In 2023, as one of the ten members of the Windrush Pioneering Generation of His Majesty King Charles, his portrait was painted as part of the Royal Collection Trust.
Dr Marcella Daye 
Dr Marcella Daye is an academic researcher at the University of Northampton with a PhD in Tourism Marketing and an MSc with Distinction in Tourism Planning and Development from the University of Surrey. Marcella began her career as a radio journalist. Then, she worked as a tourism practitioner for ten years in public relations and marketing at the Jamaica Tourist Board. Marcella’s focal academic research interests are in place branding and destination image, and she sits on the editorial boards of the peer-reviewed journals, Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Planning and Development. A scholar-activist for Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Marcella is Co/Chair for the race equality network at the University of Northampton, known as the Global Ethnic Majority (GEM).) In 2022, she was commissioned as a consultant on the EU EXPERIENCE project to examine barriers to ethnic minority participation in domestic tourism in the UK. Marcella also sits on the Board of the EDI Committee of the Chartered Institute of Business Schools (CABS). She also serves on the Advisory Board as the EDI lead for Healthwatch Northamptonshire as well as on the county’s Integrated Care Board’s Race Health Inequalities Working Group. This year, Marcella was elected to serve on the Council of Governors for the Northamptonshire Health Foundation Trust.
Nelson Cummins 
Nelson Cummins is the Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire at Glasgow Museums. In the role he is responsible for exploring how the histories and legacies of transatlantic slavery and the British Empire impact Glasgow Museums and the wider city of Glasgow.
Nelson was one of the project leads on Glasgow-City of Empire, a permanent display opened in November that examines the legacies of colonialism and how they have shaped Glasgow. The display opens up conversations about slavery, exploitation, oppression, resilience, and resistance. Drawing on the collections of Glasgow Life Museums, the display combines historic and contemporary objects to explore how we can better address the histories and legacies of transatlantic slavery and British colonialism.
Previously, Nelson worked as the Community and Campaigns Officer at the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), where he was responsible for co-ordinating their work on Black History, including co-ordinating programming for Black History Month Scotland in 2021 and 2022.