Professor Gerald Lalor has died

Professor Gerald Lalor has died.

Lalor, who was 90, passed away on Sunday night. 

He has had a stellar career in science. 

It began at the University of the West Indies where he was an assistant lecturer in chemistry in 1960 after leaving West Indies Chemical Works where he had been employed for the previous six years. 

Prior to this, he had graduated from the UWI in 1953 with a B.Sc. degree in physics, chemistry and mathematics. 

His post-graduate studies took him to the University of Cambridge in England where he undertook research for a year, the University of London, where he completed his doctorate in physical inorganic chemistry, and a number of Ivy League universities in the United States after he was granted a prestigious Carnegie Fellowship in 1966. 

In 1969, he was made Professor of Chemistry at the UWI, and over the course of the next 20 or so years, was variously made Head of the Chemistry Department, Pro Vice Chancellor, and Principal.

Upon his retirement as UWI Principal in 1996, Professor Lalor continued his work with International Centre for Environmental and Nuclear Sciences (ICENS) until 2011 when he was 80 years old.

For his seminal contribution to science and technology, Professor Lalor was conferred with the Order of Jamaica, the Musgrave Gold Medal, the Phillip Sherlock Award for Excellence, the Normal Manley Award for Excellence, the Centenary Medal of the Institute of Jamaica and The Gleaner Annual Award, to name just a few. 

He was married to Noelle Cameron and was the father of four.

Professor Lalor published extensively and continued writing long after his retirement. 

In a 2001 Gleaner article, in which he underscored the urgent need for Third World nations to be on par with developed nations with respect to science and technology, he wrote: “It may seem a very long way from the dawn of creation to the fate of a poor lead poisoned child...but science encompasses all that and more...it now lies at the core of human life.”

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