UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees honors Gillings with Davie Award
| November 18, 2010 | |
Dr. Dennis Gillings
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has honored Dennis Gillings, PhD, CBE, as one of four recipients of the William Richardson Davie Award, the board’s highest honor. Chancellor Holden Thorp and the trustees also honored State Sen. Linda Garrou of Winston-Salem; Chancellor Emeritus James Moeser of Chapel Hill; and State Sen. Richard Stevens of Cary during a Nov. 17 dinner at the Carolina Inn.
Established by the Board of Trustees in 1984, the Davie Award is named for the Revolutionary War hero who is considered the father of the University. It recognizes extraordinary service to the University or society.
In 2007, Dennis and Joan Gillings made the largest single commitment from an individual in University history – $50 million to the School of Public Health, renamed the Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Dennis Gillings’ generosity springs from long ties to Carolina. A native of Great Britain, he received his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Exeter, England, and his diploma in mathematical statistics from the University of Cambridge.
In 1971, he joined UNC’s faculty as associate professor of biostatistics. While a full professor and director of the Biometrics Consulting Laboratory, Gillings consulted for pharmaceutical companies that needed help analyzing data from clinical trials. From these beginnings, he founded Quintiles Transnational Corp. in 1982. The company is the largest global provider of clinical trials and commercial marketing services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
More information about all four awardees is available on the UNC website.
Read UNC Board of Trustees member Barbara Hyde’s introduction (PDF) of Dennis Gillings at the award presentation.
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UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.
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