Professor Sir Geoffrey Palmer was born in the parish of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.
He travelled to the United Kingdom as part of the Windrush Generation and is now Professor Emeritus in the School of Life Sciences at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh.
Among many career highlights, he discovered the barley abrasion process and has received the American Society of Brewing Chemists award of distinction. In 1989, he became the first Black professor in Scotland and was knighted in 2014.