Professor Sir Michael Berry is a theoretical mathematical physicist at the University of Bristol. He is perhaps best known for his work with the Berry Phase, a phase observed in optics and quantum mechanics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 2006 for his services to science. When I come to work in the morning, I often don't know...
Dame Athene Donald is Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses primarily on soft matter physics and its structures and relationships with living organisms. Her list of awards and honours is extensive, including being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, numerous honorary doctorates and Women in Science awards. In 2010, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order...
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...
Richard Vranch might be best known to British audiences as ‘Richard at the piano’ from the original series of Whose Line Is It Anyway? or as a member of the Comedy Store Players where he has performed improvised comedy twice a week for as long as he can remember. A regular on British radio and television, before turning to comedy he worked as a...
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...
Andrew Steele works as a computational biologist for Cancer Research UK, despite gaining his PhD in physics. He is a leading science communicator, particularly in the area of science funding. A lot of the simple problems have been solved, really. On becoming interested in science My mum always tells me it was when I was about seven, I started looking up at the stars...
Dr Tom Whyntie is the ‘Researcher in Residence’for the CERN@school project across the UK, the aim of which is to get as many schools as possible interested in, and working in, physics. He completed his PhD at Imperial College as part of the High Energy Physics group working on the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the LHC. This is a chance to have...
Max Tegmark is a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. Originally from Sweden, he studied in Stockholm before obtaining his PhD at Berkeley. His work focuses on theoretical work within cosmology and formulated the ‘ultimate ensemble theory of everything’ discussing the underlying mathematics of the universe. His first book, ‘Our Mathematical Universe’, was...
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...
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,...
Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer specialising in bubbles and is currently based at the University of Southampton after spending four years in the US working in oceanography teams. She regularly presents a variety of science programmes for the BBC on both television and radio including ‘Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey’ and ‘Dara O’Briain’s Science Club’. I’ve always been more interested...
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...
The author of over one hundred scientific papers, Jeff Forshaw is a Professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. His key areas of study include quantum and particle physics as well as the Theory of Relativity. He has written two popular science books on the subject, both with Professor Brian Cox, ‘Why Does E=MC²’ and ‘The Quantum Universe’. We’re pretty...
James Chapman is a PhD student at The University of Manchester researching the superconductivity properties of graphene. He is also a part-time illustrator. Graphene is the thinnest material in the whole world. On starting graphene research Three years ago, the Nobel Prize went to Manchester University, which I was doing my undergrad at, for the discovery of graphene which happened in 2004. So...
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...
Jonathon Davis is a final year PhD student at University College London working in particle astrophysics. Jonathon works on the ARA experiment deployed at the South Pole which is designed to detect high energy neutrinos using radio signals. You can be the cleverest guy in the world but if the theory doesn’t match experiment then it’s wrong. On becoming interested in...
Jim Al-Khalili OBE is a scientist, author and broadcaster. He is the Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, where he also holds a chair in Public Engagement in Science. He is the current president of the British Humanist Association. Jim is a leading science communicator, having written a number of bestselling popular science books and presented a huge number of science...
Simon Singh is a best selling science writer with a PhD in particle physics. His written works include ‘The Code Book,’ ‘Trick Or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial,’ ‘The Big Bang’ and ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem.’ The latter was turned into a BAFTA winning documentary which he also directed. Simon is a prominent figure in the skeptical scene and campaigns for changes to the...
Michael Conterio is a physics PhD student at Cambridge University working in the Toshiba Quantum Information Group. He is also a part time comedian and science communicator and can be regularly heard on the ‘Burst the Bubble’ podcast. All the best ideas it seems, are those that are obvious after the fact. On becoming interested in science Partially I just really liked maths...
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...
Jon Butterworth is Particle Physics Professor at University College London. He is a member of the High Energy Physics Group on the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and worked on the discovery of the Higgs Boson. He also writes a regular popular science column for the Guardian newspaper in the UK. It’s an odd concept that something that...