Alfred William Rutherford FRS[1] is Professor and Chair in Biochemistry of Solar energy in the Department of Life sciences at Imperial College London.

[3][8][9] Rutherford was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys, Morpeth[4] and the University of Liverpool where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in 1976.

Rutherford's research[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] investigates: the water oxidising enzyme Photosystem II in terms of its mechanism, its assembly and its evolutionary relationships with other photosynthetic reaction centres.

His nomination reads: Bill Rutherford has made seminal contributions that provided deep insights into the structure and function of photosynthetic reaction centres, in particular Photosystem II (PSII).

[3] On 25 January 2013 Rutherford received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden.