Dr Matt Taylor is an astrophysicist who, with the European Space Agency, is the Project Scientist of the Rosetta mission, which became the first successful mission in human history to land a space probe on a comet. He received a PhD in space physics from Imperial College London and has been an author on over 70 publications. He has also made numerous appearances on...
Professor Carlos Frenk is a cosmologist who won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014. His research is in the fields of cosmology, galaxy formation and computer simulations of cosmic structure formation. he is the current Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University in the UK, where he builds model universes in state of the art computers. I...
Fay Dowker is a cosmologist and professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. As a student she studied wormholes, was awarded the Tyson Medal and completed her PhD under the supervision of none other than Professor Stephen Hawking. She is currently conducting research in the areas of quantum gravity and casual set theory. So, quantum gravity is my day job, that’s what...
Chris Lintott is an astrophysicist working as a researcher in the physics department at the University of Oxford. His work focuses primarily on the chemistry associated with star formation and citizen projects relating to galaxies. Chris is perhaps most well known around the world as the host of ‘The Sky at Night’, which also co-hosted for many years with the late Sir Patrick Moore....
Chiara Mingarelli is a PhD student in the Gravitational Wave Group at the University of Birmingham. She is part of a team testing Einstein’s theory of gravity by attempting to detect and measure gravitational radiation. Chiara is also heavily involved in astrophysics outreach, speaking at a number of science events and festivals. We think we live in a finite universe where we don’t have...
Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist working in the Centre for Planetary Studies searching for the possibility of micro bacterial life on the surface of Mars. He also gives regular talks on the subject at schools and science festivals and has published a number of popular science books. We’ve found more and more Earth-like planets orbiting other stars in the night sky. On early inspirations...
Brian Cox OBE is particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor at the University of Manchester. He also works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. He is the author of two best selling physics books with Professor Jeff Forshaw and co-host of the Sony Award winning radio series ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’ with Robin Ince. However,...
Commander Chris Hadfield is a retired Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space. He is a former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, has flown two space shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station. Commander Hadfield gained worldwide fame during his time on the ISS. As well conducting a wide range of scientific experiments he chronicled...
Lucie Green is a space scientist based at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory. Her particular area of interest is the magnetic fields within our sun’s atmosphere. She is also a Royal Society University Research Fellow and is a board member of the European Solar Physics Division. Lucie can regularly be seen and heard on TV and radio in such programmes as ‘Horizon,’ ‘Stargazing...
Andrew Pontzen is a research fellow at Oxford Astrophysics and Balliol College. His work covers theoretical cosmology and galaxy formation in computational cosmology. He is also a science communicator who performs songs about the universe. We shouldn’t think of science as a big infallible edifice. On getting into science I first got interested in science when I was in school. I was lucky enough...
Dr Francisco Diego is a Senior Research Fellow with a PhD in astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University College London. He is the producer of ‘The Mind of the Universe’, a collection of lectures and workshops on astronomy and astrophysics for schools, and has also appeared in a variety of television shows including ‘Wonders of the Universe’ with...
Colin Stuart is an astronomy presenter and science communicator at the Royal Observatory Planetarium in London. He is also a science writer who focuses on physics, astronomy and mathematics. He is the co-author of the new book ‘The Big Questions in Science’. He spoke with Cosmic Genome with one of his co-authors of that book, Man Keat Looi. I tended to chew up...
Professor Lawrence M. Krauss is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He is the Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. He is also a best selling popular science author and documentary presenter. The Big Bang was an experiment, it’s now just data analysis. On getting interested in...
Kevin Fong is a Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow, co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, expert on space medicine, anaesthetist, physiology lecturer, author and television and radio presenter. His programmes have included ‘Space Shuttle: The Final Mission’ for the BBC and ‘Extreme A&E’ for Channel 4. His first book, ‘Extremes’, was released in 2013. I do worry a...
Helen Keen is an English comedian. In 2008 she began touring science festivals with her stand up show ‘It is Rocket Science’, a lecture about the history of the space rocket. She also curates ‘Spacetacular’, which is a sort of space themed variety night. I only got a B in my GCSE Physics. On getting interested in science I always change my mind...
Giovanna Tinettu is an Italian astrobiologist and astrophysicist interested in the spectral retrieval and observations of exoplanetary atmospheres. Gio works in the physics department at University College London but is also a regular collaborator with the ESA and NASA. What I think is amazing today is to be able to probe so far away in time On getting interested in science I started...
Marcus Chown is a best-selling science writer and journalist. He is currently the cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine and his books, including ‘We Need to Talk About Kelvin’ and ‘Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You’, are regularly in the popular science charts. He graduated from the University of London with a first in physics and later gained a Master of Science in astrophysics...