10 Jamaicans Awarded Musgrave Medals

Ten Jamaicans were recently awarded Musgrave Medals for work in their respective fields of Literature, Science and the Arts.

The Medals are given in the categories of gold, silver and bronze, and there is also a special category for outstanding youth between 18 and 25 years of age.

The Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) presented the awards at a virtual ceremony aired on the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica (PBCJ) and IOJ YouTube channels.

Heading the list of awardees were Professor Ishion Hutchinson, Professor Mona Webber, and Steven Woodham, OD, who received gold medals in the fields of Literature, Science and Music, respectively.

Silver medals were awarded to Professor Mark Harris in the field of Science; Professor Shara McCallum, for Literature and James ‘Jimmy’ Tucker, CD, in the field of Music.

Bronze medals were conferred on Veronica Blake-Carnegie in the field of Literature; Fitzroy Russell for Art and Hawthorne Watson for Science.

This year’s youth category awardee is Sujae Hugh Boswell for Excellence in Youth Advocacy and Leadership.

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Hon. Olivia Grange, in a pre-recorded message congratulated the 10 awardees.

“I am pleased to see that our awardees continue to excel in the sciences as well as in the cultural and creative industries, poetry, sculpture and publishing,” she said.

The Minister urged the IOJ to broaden the scope of its fields of endeavour and to recognise excellence in artificial intelligence, climate change and resilience, animation, fashion and entrepreneurship.

“As the Institute evolves, so too must we encourage the emergence of modern skill sets and gender mainstreaming as our women assert their roles in national development,” she added.

Minister Grange said that over the years, the Institute has awarded more than 1,000 Musgrave medals in gold, silver and bronze.

She noted that in 2001, the Institute took “the strategic step to award the Musgrave youth medal, which represents the importance of empowering our young people”.

The Musgrave medal is one of the oldest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and was awarded for the first time in 1897. It was introduced as a memorial to Sir Anthony Musgrave, who founded the IOJ during his tenure as Governor of Jamaica between 1877 and 1883.