Sir Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was honored June 19 with an honorary doctor of letters (Litt. D.) degree from the University of Cambridge, his alma mater. He is among the handful of honorees to receive doctorates from the Congregation for Honorary Degrees.

His fellow honorees included the ethologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, the novelist Marilynne Robinson, the social justice campaigner Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, and the conductor Sir Mark Elder.

Deaton is Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs, Emeritus, and professor of economics and international affairs, emeritus, at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His research emphasizes poverty, inequality, health and wellbeing.

Deaton’s work with Anne Case, published in 2015 with an update in 2017, was the first to detect a rise in all-cause mortality driven by deaths from drugs, alcohol, and suicide among middle-aged Americans, especially those without a college degree. His book “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality” investigates inequality around the world.

Now a senior scholar at Princeton, Deaton is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was the first recipient of the Econometric Society’s Frisch Medal for Applied Econometrics. Deaton has received honorary doctorates from the University of Rome, Tor Vergata; University College, London; the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Cyprus, and Brown University.