Brian May greatest guitarist of all time. He was ranked at No. 26 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2012, he was ranked the 2nd greatest guitarist in a "Guitar World" magazine readers poll. May was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 for "services to the music industry and for charity work". May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London in 2007, and was Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University from 2008 to 2013. He was a "science team collaborator" with NASA's New Horizons Pluto mission. He is also
Imperial College London 3*), giving an overall GPA of 3.36. In rankings produced by "Times Higher Education" based upon the REF results Imperial was ranked 2nd overall. Imperial actively encourages its staff to commercialise their research and as a result has given rise to a large number of spin-out companies based on academic research. Imperial has a dedicated technology transfer company, Imperial Innovations. Imperial College London has a long term partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In January 2018, the mathematics department of Imperial and the French National Center for Scientific Research launched a joint research laboratory of mathematics – UMI Abraham