THE expert who gave a face to both Richard III and Santa Claus returned to her former school to urge pupils to stimulate their brains.

Professor Caroline Wilkinson returned to Ripon Grammar School to present its top students with their prizes.

The director of the School of Art and Design at Liverpool John Moores University, she is renowned for her work as a forensic anthropologist recreating the head of Richard III from the skeleton discovered under a Leicester car park.

She also reconstructed the face of St Nicholas and has regularly featured on TV, particularly on Meet the Ancestprs.

She told students, staff and parents at the annual lower school prize-giving ceremony: “The brain needs lots of stimulus from all different areas so the more subjects you study the better.

“Modern research has dispelled the myth that people have a dominant side of the brain, the right side looking after the analytical, the left creative.

“ Art and science skills are desirable in a host of careers and cross-disciplinary research is innovative and pioneering.”

Prof Wilkinson left Ripon Grammar School in 1984 and has enjoyed a rich and varied career.

“It has been incredible working in this area,” she said.

“There are incredible opportunities out there so study the things you are interested in and follow your dreams. You never regret doing things but you will regret not doing them and the future is definitely cross-disciplinary.”