Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize | Royal Society (2024)

Professor John Hutchinson FRS

Chair

John Hutchinson is an American biologist who found a new home in the UK as a dual citizen and is a Professor of Evolutionary Biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College near London. His research straddles the fields of evolutionary biology and biomechanics, with an emphasis on how very large animals stand and move, and how locomotion evolved in different groups of land vertebrates across major evolutionary transitions and transformations. Professor Hutchinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023. He is an Editor for Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and is President of the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology.

Bobby Seagull

Bobby Seagull is a teacher, broadcaster, and writer. After a career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Bobby switched trajectories and became a teacher, a passion that started with a scholarship to Eton College. He writes regularly for the Financial Times and has published two books: Monkman and Seagull Quiz Book and The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers. In 2016-17, Bobby captained the Emmanuel College team on University Challenge where he met his future broadcasting partner Eric Monkman as a member of the rival Wolfson College team. Bobby went on to co-host Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Guides for BBC Two in 2018 and Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Adventures in 2020. Bobby had featured in E4’s The Real Dirty Dancing, and in popular gameshows such as Richard Osman’s House of Games, Pointless Celebrities, and Countdown’s Dictionary Corner. In 2023, Bobby was a contestant in Channel 4's Hunted for Stand Up To Cancer. He also appeared in BBC Two's Pilgrimage. Beyond his television work, Bobby is an accomplished keynote speaker and has hosted events for Pearson Education, Manchester City Football Academy, and The British Library. He has partnered with brands such as Argos, IBM and IKEA and has delivered keynote speeches for the likes of TEDx, the British Chambers of Commerce, National Numeracy, and numerous schools across the UK.

Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton is the author of The Luminaries, winner of the 2013 Booker Prize and an international bestseller. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal, won the Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. As a screenwriter, she adapted The Luminaries for television and Jane Austen's Emma for feature film. Her most recent novel Birnam Wood was a Sunday Times bestseller on publication, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Kirkus Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Nero Book Award for Fiction. In 2023 Catton was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Born in Canada and raised in New Zealand, she now lives in Cambridge.

Alison Flood

Alison Flood is comment and culture editor at New Scientist. She also reviews thrillers for the Observer. Previously The Guardian’s books reporter, former news editor of The Bookseller.

Professor Alain Goriely FRS

Chair

Alain Goriely is a mathematician and is well known for his contributions to fundamental and applied mechanics, and, in particular, for the development of a mathematical theory of biological growth. He is the University of Oxford Statutory Professor of Mathematical Modelling, fellow of St Catherine’s College and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In addition, he enjoys scientific outreach based on problems connected to his research, and he is the author of A Very Short Introduction to Applied Mathematics. His work has been recognized by a Sloan Fellowship, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Award, the Cozzarelli Prize from the US National Academy of Sciences, as well as multiple visiting professorships at Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge, Paris, and Lausanne.

Anita Singh

Anita Singh is the Arts and Entertainment Editor of The Daily Telegraph covering books, art, music, television and film. She lives in London with her husband and two children. In Autumn 2017, her first book The Story of the Great British Bake Off (Head of Zeus) was published, celebrating the hit show.

Bonnie Garmus

Bonnie Garmus is an author, copywriter and creative director who has worked for a wide range of clients, focusing primarily on technology, medicine, and education. Her bestselling debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, has a TV adaptation launching in autumn 2023. She is an open-water swimmer, a rower, and mother to two daughters. Most recently from Seattle, she lives in London with her husband and her dog, 99.

Paterson Joseph

Paterson Joseph was born and raised in London and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He’s worked extensively on screen, television and in the theatre. Paterson recently wrapped on Boat Story for the BBC and will next appear in Wonka alongside Timothée Chalemet, directed by Paul King. Paterson's previous on screen credits include: Anansi Boys, That Dirty Black Bag, Vigil, The Mosquito Coast, Inside No.9, Noughts And Crosses, Avenue 5, Grantchester, Peep Show, Green Wing, In The Name Of The Father and The Beach. On stage, Paterson's theatre credits include A Christmas Carol (Old Vic), Troilus and Cressida, The Last Days of Don Juan, King Lear (RSC); Elmina’s Kitchen, St Joan, Emperor Jones and The Royal Hunt of the Sun (National Theatre).

Dr Rebecca Henry URF

Dr Rebecca Henry is a Royal Society - SFI University Research Fellow at the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College of Cork. Her research is focused on understanding how pre-existing diet-induced obesity impacts experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI) outcomes. Dr. Henry carried out her postdoctoral training at the Shock Trauma and Anesthesiology Research Center, University of Maryland (2015-2021). Her postdoctoral research investigated the underlying mechanisms driving chronic neuroinflammatory processes in preclinical TBI models. She received the prestigious Training, Education and Mentoring Award at the 37th Annual Meeting of the National Neurotrauma Society (NNS) and the NNS ‘Rising Star’ Award at the 38th Annual Meeting of the NNS.

Dr Jess Wade URF

Jess Wade is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. Her research considers new materials for optoelectronic devices, with a focus on chiral organic semiconductors and how to optimise these chiral systems such that they can absorb/emit circularly polarised light as well as transport spin-polarised electrons. For her PhD Jess concentrated on new materials for photovoltaics and the development of advanced characterisation techniques to better understand their molecular packing. Outside of the lab, Jess is involved with several science communication and outreach initiatives. Her first children’s book, ‘Nano, the spectacular science of the very, very small’ was released by Walker Books in 2021. She is committed to improving diversity in science, both online and offline.

Josh McFayden

Dr Josh McFayden is an experimental particle physicist and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. After completing a PhD at the University of Sheffield, he has held post-doctoral researcher positions at University College London, CERN and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Professor Anne Osbourn

Chair

Professor Anne Osbourn is a Project Leader at the John Innes Centre and Director of the Norwich Research Park Industrial Biotechnology Alliance. She is also an honorary professor at the University of East Anglia, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2019. Her research focuses on plant-derived natural products with potential importance for the development of drugs and other compounds useful for medicine, agriculture or industry. Anne is also a poet, and has developed and co-ordinates the Science, Art and Writing (SAW) Initiative, a cross-curricular science education outreach programme.

Dr Anastasia Kisil

Dr Anastasia Kisil is a Dorothy Hodgkin Royal Society Fellow, working on mathematical methods in acoustics and metamaterials. Her research interest is motivated by the need to find new ways to decrease noise pollution. She is particularly interested in looking at adaptations found in nature, for example, in silent flight of owls. She previously briefly held the Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellowships also at University of Manchester. Prior to that she was awarded a stipendiary three-year Research Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. Dr Kisil has obtained her master's and PhD degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. She regularly organises and leads networking events and conferences supported by major scientific bodies, such as a one-month Isaac Newton Institute programme, ICMS webinars and BIRS scientific program. Additionally, she is leading a special interest group in EPSRC UK Acoustics Network and the newly established EPSRC UK Metamaterials Network.

Clive Myrie

Clive Myrie is a multi-award-winning journalist, writer and film maker, and one of the BBC’s most experienced foreign affairs correspondents, having served as Asia, Africa, Washington and Europe Correspondent. He is now a regular presenter of the One, Six and Ten O’Clock News bulletins on BBC One, and of news shows on the BBC News Channel. As well as making domestic and foreign affairs features for BBC News, he also makes programmes for Radio 4 and Panorama. His numerous awards include three Royal Television Society Awards, including this year both Journalist of the Year and Presenter of the Year. Myrie was born in Bolton, Lancashire and studied law at the University of Sussex.

Katy Guest

Katy Guest is a freelance journalist, reviewer, writer and editor who also works part time as senior commissioning editor and new business lead at the crowdfunding publisher Unbound. Katy worked at the Independent newspapers for 18 years, becoming literary editor of the Independent on Sunday until 2016. She was contributing editor of the online literary magazine Boundless from 2017-2020. Books she has commissioned for Unbound include: Mud, Maul, Mascara by the former England rugby captain Catherine Spencer; The Tango Effect: Parkinson’s and the Healing Power of Dance by Kate Swindlehurst and Girl With a Gun: Love, Loss and the Fight for Freedom in Iran by Diana Nammi and Karen Attwood, which was recently seen on Boris Johnson’s ‘to be read’ pile at 10 Downing Street. Katy currently reviews books and writes features and columns for publications including the Guardian, Independent, TLS, Financial Times, The Bookseller and Mslexia. She has judged prizes including the Desmond Elliott Prize, Fiction Uncovered and the Aesthetica short story prize, hosted panels at book festivals including Oxford, Wimbledon, Bath, Guildford and Kew, and appeared as a regular book fanatic in the ‘Must Reads’ slot on BBC Radio 5’s Phil Williams and Sarah Brett shows.

Gwyneth Williams

Gwyneth Williams is the Controller of BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra (2010 to present). Before that she was Director of the BBC World Service in English, Editor of the BBC Reith Lectures for many years and Head of BBC Radio Current Affairs. She started her career at the BBC writing current affairs talks for the World Service and then worked at the Overseas Development Institute before returning to the BBC. She has published two books, one, co-authored, on Southern Africa and another on Third World political organisations.

Dorothy Koomson

Dorothy Koomson is an internationally bestselling author whose award-winning novels include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Friend, That Girl from Nowhere, The Ice Cream Girls, The Woman He Loved Before, The Chocolate Run and My Best Friend’s Girl. Her novels The Ice Cream Girls and The Rose Petal Beach were both shortlisted for the British Book Awards. Her next book, Tell Me Your Secret, is published by Headline in June 2019. Dorothy is a regular speaker in libraries and at festivals and supports the work of the National Literacy Trust, an independent charity that transforms lives through literacy, and Little Green Pig, a Brighton and Hove based charity that offers free writing workshops for young people in need.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS

Chair

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt is one of the UK’s foremost computer scientists. He is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and was one of the originators of the interdisciplinary field of Web Science. In 2009, he was appointed Information Advisor by the Prime Minister and, working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, led the development of the acclaimed data.gov.uk. He is the co-author of The Spy in the Coffee Machine and is an authority on privacy and trust in the digital age. In 2018 he published The Digital Ape: how to live (in peace) with smart machines. He is Professor of Computing Science and President of Jesus College at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.

Greg Williams

Greg Williams is the Editor of WIRED, the authoritative publication on technology, science, business, ideas and culture. He is also the author of six novels. Now based in London, he spent a decade in New York City. He is a currently the British Society of Magazine Editors’ Editor of the Year, Technology.

Vivienne Parry OBE

A scientist by training, Vivienne hosts medical programmes for Radio 4, writes widely on health and science, presents films, facilitates many high level conferences and debates and trains young researchers. She also has a part time role as head of engagement at Genomics England which is delivering the 100,000 Genomes Project and is a board member of UKRI. Her book ‘The Truth about Hormones’ was shortlisted for the 2005 Royal Society Book Prize.

Peter Florence CBE

Peter Florence started Hay Festival in 1987 around his mother’s kitchen table, with his parents and a few friends. Over the past 31 years the Hay Festival has brought more than four million people to events in 15 countries around the world.

Dr Sam Gilbert

Dr Sam Gilbert is a former Royal Society Senior Research Fellow and is now Senior Research Fellow at UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. His research investigates human brain function and its relationship with memory, planning, and social behaviour. Before joining UCL for his PhD in Psychology, Sam was awarded a BA in Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Claudia Hammond

Claudia Hammond is an award-winning broadcaster, writer and psychology lecturer. She is the presenter of All in the Mind & Mind Changers on BBC Radio 4 and Health Check and The Evidence on BBC World Service Radio. She is on the faculty at Boston University's London base where she lectures in health and social psychology and has just completed a 22-month residency at the Wellcome Collection as Associate Director of Hubbub, an interdisciplinary project on the topic of rest. Claudia has also authored three psychology books including her latest book is Mind over Money: the psychology of money and how to use it better published by Canongate.

Roger Highfield

Roger Highfield was born in Wales, raised in north London and became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. He was the Science Editor of The Daily Telegraph for two decades and the Editor of New Scientist between 2008 and 2011. Today, he is the Director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group. Roger has written seven books and had thousands of articles published in newspapers and magazines.

Dr Clare Burrage

Dr Clare Burrage has been a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham since January 2013. She arrived in Nottingham in November 2011 as an Anne McLaren Fellow. She was awarded her PhD in 2008 from the University of Cambridge. In 2015 she was awarded the Maxwell Medal by the Institute of Physics. Her research aims to understand the nature of dark energy, the mysterious substance driving the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe.

Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds is the author of multiple science fiction novels and more than sixty pieces of shorter fiction. His work is widely translated and republished. He was a scientist before becoming a full-time writer, although the two professions overlapped for a good few years. His research area was astronomy and astrophysics, and he spent a long period of time working in and around the European Space Agency’s main research establishment in the Netherlands.

Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters is a bestselling author, whose books Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger have all been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In total Sarah has published six novels and has won an array of literary awards. Her work has also been adapted into multi-award winning TV and film productions.

Dr Adam Rutherford

Dr Adam Rutherford is a scientist, writer and broadcaster. He has presented documentaries on subjects ranging from art and astronomy, to evolution and sex, and he is the main presenter for BBC Radio 4’s flagship science programme, Inside Science. On television, he has presented award-winning series on topics such as the history of science and synthetic biology. He writes for the Guardian, and his first book, Creation, was critically acclaimed.

Dr Jo Shien Ng

Dr Jo Shien Ng, received B.Eng and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Sheffield in 1999 and 2003, respectively. After a few years working as a postdoctoral researcher, she was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2006, with a research focus on avalanche photodiodes.

Dr Nathalie Vriend

Dr Nathalie Vriend is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. Nathalie’s research aims to investigate granular materials with a special interest in geophysical phenomena occurring in nature (dunes, avalanches) and engineering problems in industry (sound propagation, collective behaviour). Prior to beginning at Cambridge, Nathalie obtained a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, USA.

Lone Frank

Lone Frank is a former neuroscientist, journalist and author. Lone is also staff writer at Weekendavisen, Denmark’s leading newspaper making contributions to debates on science and technology. She has written for international publications such as Nature Biotechnology, Science and appears regularly on Danish radio and television. Her four books have been released to critical acclaim, earning several literary awards, and translated into several languages. Her book My Beautiful Genome was shortlisted for the 2012 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

Professor Maria Fitzgerald FRS

Chair

Maria Fitzgerald is a neuroscientist and an expert in the biology of pain processing in the spinal cord and brain. Her laboratory in the UCL Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology focuses upon the formation of neuronal circuits that underlie acute and chronic pain and how these circuits are shaped in early life. She uses neurophysiological techniques in animal models and human participants to understand the mechanisms underlying the short and long-term effects of early life pain. Her lab is internationally recognised for its impact on pain management in infants, children and young people. She has published over 250 research papers and reviews in pain neurobiology and has received numerous honours and prizes including fellowship of the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences and, most recently, the Feldberg Foundation Prize. Her work crosses boundaries between cellular and integrative neurobiology, physiology and behaviour and she collaborates extensively with clinical colleagues.

Professor Nicola Clayton FRS

Chair

Professor Nicola Clayton FRS (Chair) is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge. Professor Clayton work focusses on experimental psychologist and her studies of members of the crow family have shattered assumptions about the cognitive abilities of non-human animals. She was the first Scientist in Residence at the dance company Rambert, a title she has continuously held since 2011. She also collaborates with artist and writer Clive Wilkins on The Captured Thought.

Professor Luke O’Neill FRS

Chair

Luke O’Neill is Professor of Biochemistry in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is a world expert on innate immunity and inflammation. He is listed by Thompson Reuters/Clarivates in the top 1% of immunologists in the world, based on citations per paper. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation) and a Fellow of the Royal Society.His awards include the Royal Dublin Society / Irish Times Boyle Medal for scientific excellence, the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal for Life Sciences, The Society for Leukocyte Biology (SLB) Dolph O. Adams award and the European Federation of Immunology Societies Medal.Luke also has a passion for communicating science to the public. He has a weekly radio slot on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk in Ireland. He has published 3 best-selling books with Gill Publishers: Humanology: a scientist’s guide to our amazing existence; The Great Irish Science Book; and Never Mind the B#ll*cks Here’s the Science, which was a winner at the Irish Book Awards in 2020.

Rory Cellan-Jones

Rory Cellan-Jones was a reporter on the BBC for thirty years covering technology; he has worked on BBC World Service, Money Programme, Newsnight, the Today programme and the Ten O Clock News. Best known for his role as Technology Correspondent (2007 – 2021), Rory has covered the impact of the internet on business and society. As well as a broadcaster, Rory has written critically acclaimed books - Dot Bomb, 2001 and Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era, 2021 - described by Stephen Fry as “delightfully insightful and intensely readable. In 2021 he was made an Honorary Fellow of The National Museum of Computing in recognition for his services to technology education. Since leaving the BBC, he has become an independent technology consultant, writer and broadcaster. He has also started a newsletter about health tech, one of his major interests.

Christy Lefteri

Brought up in London, Christy Lefteri is the child of Cypriot refugees. She is a lecturer in creative writing at Brunel University. Her novel, The Beekeeper of Aleppo, is an international bestseller, selling well over a million copies worldwide and published in over 40 countries. The Beekeeper of Aleppo won The Aspen Literary Prize (for an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture). It was the runner up for The Dayton Literary Prize and won the Prix de l’Union Interalliée for Best Foreign novel in France. Lefteri’s new novel, Songbirds, was published in the UK on 6th July 2021.

Ortis Deley

Ortis Deley is in his ninth year of hosting Channel 5’s The Gadget Show. As well as appearing on our screens weekly on The Gadget Show, Ortis has also been part of Channel 5’s Police Interceptors team, presenting specials both alone and alongside Rick Edwards. He also contributed to Ancient Top 10 for the History Channel, a programme which looked at the origins of technology.Having started his career on Trouble TV as a main anchor, Deley then moved across to CBBC as the anchor on the very popular Short Change. Quickly becoming part of the CBBC family, he went on to present Why 5, X-perimental, Making It, Xchange and Live & Kicking, all for CBBC. Deley’s love of science and technology began when he was a child who was very much into sci-fi and comic books. He also has an honours degree in Pharmacy and is a qualified personal trainer.

Katharine Fry

Katharine Fry is the Trade Buying Manager for Blackwell’s, where she is responsible for the promotional activity across all genres of publishing. Katharine has over 20 years’ experience of buying across a wide range of subject areas from specialist non-fiction through to Children’s titles. She has also served as a judge on The British Book Awards or Nibbies for the Narrative Non-Fiction Book of the Year category. Katharine organises Blackwell’s Book of the Year award, now in its fifth year.

Dr Kartic Subr

Dr Kartic Subr, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, researches models and algorithms for rapid approximation of solutions to computationally challenging problems. His group develops and applies fast approximations of physically-based simulation to enable exciting applications in robotics, computer graphics and computer vision. Kartic has a PhD in Computer Science from University of California Irvine. His research has been shaped by his experiences in diverse academic institutions including INRIA-Grenoble and University College London as well as companies such as Disney Research, NVIDIA and Rhythm and Hues Animation Studios.

Sophie Ward

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer who has worked extensively in film and television since her feature debut in Steven Spielberg’s Young Sherlock Holmes, and in theatre, most notably with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Sophie’s first degree was in literature and philosophy and she has a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London on The Use of Fictional Narrative in Thought Experiments in Philosophy of Mind. Sophie has previously been a judge on the Costa Book Awards in 2012 and the Green Carnation Prize in 2015. Her non-fiction book, A Marriage Proposal: the importance of equal marriage and what it means for all of us, was published by the Guardian in 2014. Sophie won the Royal Academy and Pin Drop short story award in 2018. Her first novel, Love And Other Thought Experiments, was published in February 2020 by Corsair.

Stephen McGann

Stephen McGann has worked extensively in British theatre and on screen. He is currently starring as Dr Turner in the BBC's global hit Call the Midwife. He is a keen public speaker and writer on the role of science and medicine in popular culture and drama. He graduated from Imperial College London with an MSc in Science Communication in 2012, and has since been a guest speaker at the Cambridge, Cheltenham and Imperial science festivals, and contributed to the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 2016, Stephen published Doctor Turner's Casebook, a companion book to Call the Midwife exploring the historical context of cases from the series. In 2017, he published Flesh and Blood, a history of his Liverpool-Irish family told through the ailments of each generation.

Dr Shukry James Habib

Dr Shukry James Habib is a Principal Investigator and a Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at King’s College London and a member of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform. His research focuses on mechanisms of breaking cellular symmetry of stem cells to generate two different daughter cells, using this to engineer human tissues for regenerative medicine applications. His recent scientific public engagement includes talks at the Science Museum Lates and Pint of Science. Shukry has received numerous awards for his research including The London Advanced Therapy, Siebel Scholarship, Fellowships from the German Research Foundation, Max-Planck-Society and the European Molecular Biology Organisation.

Dame Frances Ashcroft FRS FMedSci

Chair

Dame Frances is a physiologist and author. She has been Professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Trinity College Oxford for many years. Her research focuses on how changes in blood glucose levels regulate insulin secretion from the pancreatic beta-cells and how this process is impaired in diabetes. She has published more than 300 scientific papers and won several awards for her work including the Croonian Lecture of the Royal Society and the L'Oréal/UNESCO Women in Science Award. She has written two books, 'Life at the Extremes: the science of survival' and 'The Spark of Life: electricity in the human body'. Her science writing was recognised by the Lewis Thomas Prize of Rockefeller University in 2013.

Shaminder Nahal

Shaminder Nahal is the Topical Specialist Factual Commissioner at Channel 4. Before this, she was Deputy Editor of Channel 4 News and prior to that, Deputy Editor of Newsnight. As Deputy Editor of Channel 4 News, she was involved in overseeing TV and digital coverage for the multi-award-winning daily news programme. Nahal oversaw planning and coverage of the Scottish Referendum, the 2015 General Election and the EU referendum. During her time at Channel 4 News, the show won the Royal Television Society award for News Programme of the Year three times, and last year won a BAFTA for its coverage of the Paris terror attacks. The programme ran major series on the challenges faced by people with disabilities - No Go Britain and on immigration - and Nahal put special emphasis on bringing new and diverse voices to the output.

Dr Leigh Fletcher

Dr Fletcher is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Associate Professor in Planetary Sciences at the University of Leicester, specialising in the exploration of planetary weather and climate using Earth-based observatories and visiting spacecraft. He was the recipient of the 2016 Harold C. Urey prize for outstanding achievements in planetary science by an early-career scientist, awarded by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society. He is a co-investigator on the Cassini mission to Saturn, the JUICE mission to Jupiter, and a passionate advocate for future exploration of the distance Ice Giants.

Professor Richard Fortey FRS FRSL

Chair

Professor Richard Fortey FRS FRSL is a palaeontologist, writer and television presenter who worked in the science departments at the Natural History Museum for many years, having published more than 200 scientific papers. He has written nine books for the general reader, among which two have been shortlisted for the Rhône-Poulenc and Samuel Johnson prizes, and his science writing was recognised by the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society in 2006, and the Lewis Thomas Prize of Rockefeller University in 2003. Richard is an hon. Fellow of the British Science Association and the Royal Society of Biology. His latest television series was Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution on BBC4 last year.

Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels: Disobedience, The Lessons, Liar’s Gospel and The Power. She has won the Orange Award for New Writers and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was selected for Granta’s once-a-decade list of Best of Young British Novelists and Waterstones Writers for the Future. She presents Science Stories on BBC Radio 4, she is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and is she is the co-creator and lead writer of the bestselling smartphone audio adventure app and book Zombies, Run! She lives in London.

GrrlScientist

"GrrlScientist" is the pseudonym of an evolutionary ecologist/ornithologist and parrot researcher. Science writer/journalist at Forbes and for the non-profit Think Tank, The Evolution Institute. Podcast writer for BirdNote Radio. Formerly: The Guardian (UK).

Kate Humble

Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner and one of the UK's best-known TV presenters. She started her television career as a researcher, later presenting programmes such as Animal Park, Springwatch and Autumnwatch, Lambing Live, Living with Nomads, Extreme Wives, Back to the Land, A Country Life for Half the Price and Escape to the Farm. Her other books include Humble by Nature, Friend for Life, Thinking on My Feet, A Year of Living Simply and Home Cooked. Thinking on My Feet was shortlisted for both the Wainwright Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year.

Mike Gayle

Formerly a journalist, Mike Gayle is the author of seventeen novels including his debut, and Sunday Times bestseller My Legendary Girlfriend. In 2021, Mike was the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association. His latest novel, All The Lonely People, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Book of the Year: Pageturners and was hailed by The Guardian as 'A heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting look at isolation.'

Bill Bryson

Chair

Bill Bryson’s bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island. His acclaimed book on the history of science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize as well as the Descartes Prize, the European Union’s highest literary award.Bill Bryson was born in the American Midwest, and now lives in the UK. A former Chancellor of Durham University, he was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England for five years, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

Krishnan Guru-Murphy

Krishnan Guru-Murthy is a broadcast journalist and one of the lead anchors on Channel 4 News, presenting the channel’s flagship evening news at 7pm as well as the midday summary. He also presents for Unreported World on Channel 4, reporting on stories from around the world. He has covered five British general elections and presented a whole host of special political and foreign affairs documentaries as well as popular science programmes.

Claire Armitstead

Claire Armitstead is Books Editor for the Guardian and Observer. Claire was previously Arts Editor at the Guardian and has worked as a Theatre Critic for the Ham & High, the Financial Times and the Guardian. She also makes regular appearances on radio and television as a cultural commentator on literature and the arts and presents the weekly Guardian books podcast.

Professor Ian Stewart FRS

Chair

Professor Ian Stewart FRS, is an active research mathematician with over 180 published papers, based in the Mathematics Department at Warwick University. He has won several awards for his popular science writing on mathematical themes. His books include 17 Equations That Changed the World and the Science of Discworld series with Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen.

Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn is a playwright, novelist and translator who began his career as an award-winning journalist. Successful in both drama and prose fiction, he is best known as the author of the play Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy and has achieved critical acclaim for his novels. His novel ‘Headlong’ was shortlisted for the Man-Booker prize in 1999 and ‘Spies’ won the Whitbread prize for fiction in 2002. His work extends to screenplays and translation of Russian literature.

Emma Read

Emma Read is managing director of Emporium Productions and former Head of Factual and Features at ITN Productions. She has produced thousands of hours of factual programmes for various channels and commissioned for many others, broadening the reach of popular factual series across a range of genres. Her critically acclaimed series include Climbing Great Buildings (BBC2), The Secret Life of Pets and Young Vets.