Geoffrey Copland

Copland was educated at Fitzmaurice Grammar School in Bradford-on-Avon. He was an undergraduate student at Merton College, Oxford where he read Physics from 1960.[4] After being awarded a first class undergraduate degree in 1963, he remained in Oxford for his DPhil, which was awarded in 1967 for research on hyperfine structure supervised by Brebis Bleaney.[1]

Following his doctorate, Copland spent two years at Yale University, before returning to the UK in 1969 as a lecturer in physics at Queen Mary College.[2] In 1971 he joined Queen Elizabeth College as a lecturer in physics, a post he held until 1980. In 1981 he was made dean of studies at Goldsmiths College, then in 1987 he moved to become deputy rector at the Polytechnic of Central London (which later became the University of Westminster), becoming its rector and vice-chancellor in 1996. Since 2007 he has been a consultant on higher education, and has held a range of academic and industry positions, including serving as chair and vice chair of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.[3]

Copland has been twice married, firstly in 1967 to Janet Mary Todd, with whom he had a son and a daughter; their marriage was dissolved in 1985, and that year Copland remarried, to Dorothy Joy Harrison.[2]