Professor Glyn O. Phillips was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Salford and appointed as Executive Principal of the North East Wales Institute (now Wrexham Glyndwr University) in 1976. He is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Benin in 1990 and an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Wales in 1999. He was awarded the A.G. Evans Medal by the University of Cardiff in 1991, the first Science and Technology Medal by the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2004 and the Food Hydrocolloids Trust Medal in 2007. He has a broad range of scientific interests and has published more than 600 research papers in areas including radiation and free radical chemistry, radiation sterilisation, photochemistry and carbohydrate and polysaccharide chemistry. He was technical adviser to the International Atomic Energy Agency and editor of the journals, Food Hydrocolloids, Advances in Tissue Banking and International Journal of Cell and Tissue banking. He initiated the Gums and Stabilisers for the Food industry series of Conferences in 1981 and established the Phillips Hydrocolloids Research Centre at Wrexham Glyndwr University in 2003.