Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize

Our major international prize celebrating popular science writing.

About the Prize

Since 1988, 红桃视频 has celebrated outstanding popular science writing and authors. Over the decades, the Prize has celebrated some notable winners including Bill Bryson, Stephen Hawking, Camilla Pang, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, and Masud Husain in 2025 with Our Brains, Our Selves.

Joining palaeontologist Professor Mike Benton FRS on the 2026 judging panel is comedian and actor Eshaan Akbar; Waterstones' non-fiction range manager Adeela Badshah; radio presenter Marnie Chesterton; writer and historian Subhadra Das; and multi-award-winning fiction author Irenosen Okojie. Read more about this year's judges.

The call for entries for the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize was open from 5 January 2026 to 2 March 2026. For the first time, this year's shortlist will be revealed by the judges to a live audience on the opening night of the Summer Science Exhibition.

Join us at 红桃视频 Summer Science Exhibition on the evening of 30 June as New Scientist’s speaks with the judging panel for this year’s Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize who will be uncovering more about the 2026 shortlist on the day of its big reveal. Find out how to attend.

For all enquiries please contact sciencebooks@royalsociety.org.

2026 Timeline

Call for entries open
05 January 2026
Call for entries closes
02 March 2026
Judging panel announced
16 June 2026
Shortlist announced
30 June 2026
Winner announced
29 September 2026

Shortlist

2026

View all winners

Hidden Guests: Migrating Cells and How the New Science of Microchimerism is Redefining Human Identity

Lise Barnéoud

2026 - Shortlist

The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry

Kit Chapman

2026 - Shortlist

Every Last Fish: What Fish Do for Us and What We Do to Them

Rose George

2026 - Shortlist

Ends of the Earth

Neil Shubin

2025 - Shortlist

Music as Medicine

Daniel Levitin

2025 - Shortlist

Your Life is Manufactured

Tim Minshall

2025 - Shortlist

The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad

Simon Parkin

2025 - Shortlist

Our Brains, Our Selves

Masud Husain

2025 - Shortlist

Vanished

Sadiah Qureshi

2025 - Shortlist

A City on Mars

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

2024 - Shortlist

Everything Is Predictable

Tom Chivers

2024 - Shortlist

Why We Die

Venki Ramakrishnan

2024 - Shortlist

Your Face Belongs to Us

Kashmir Hill

2024 - Shortlist

Eve

Cat Bohannon

2024 - Shortlist

The Last of its Kind

Gísli Pálsson

2024 - Shortlist

The Exceptions

Kate Zernike

2023 - Shortlist

Taking Flight

Lev Parikian

2023 - Shortlist

Nuts and Bolts

Roma Agrawal

2023 - Shortlist

Jellyfish Age Backwards

Nicklas Brendborg

2023 - Shortlist

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Ed Yong

2023 - Shortlist

Breathless

David Quammen

2023 - Shortlist

book cover of A (Very) Short Story of Life on Earth

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth

Henry Gee

2022 - Shortlist

Different

Frans de Waal

2022 - Shortlist

Hot Air

Peter Stott

2022 - Shortlist

Spike

Jeremy Farrar

2022 - Shortlist

Age Proof

Rose Anne Kenny

2022 - Shortlist

The Greywacke

Nick Davidson

2022 - Shortlist

Breath

James Nestor

2021 - Shortlist

The End of Bias

Jessica Nordell

2021 - Shortlist

The Sleeping Beauties

Suzanne O'Sullivan

2021 - Shortlist

Entangled Life

Merlin Sheldrake

2021 - Shortlist

Science Fictions

Stuart Ritchie

2021 - Shortlist

The Last Stargazers

Emily Levesque

2021 - Shortlist

The Great Pretender

Susannah Cahalan

2020 - Shortlist

Transcendence

Gaia Vince

2020 - Shortlist

Explaining Humans

Camilla Pang

2020 - Shortlist

The World According to Physics

Jim Al-Khalili

2020 - Shortlist

The Double X Economy

Linda Scott

2020 - Shortlist

The Body: A Guide for Occupants

Bill Bryson

2020 - Shortlist

Infinite Powers

Steven Strogatz

2019 - Shortlist

The Remarkable Life of the Skin

Monty Lyman

2019 - Shortlist

The Second Kind of Impossible

Paul J. Steinhardt

2019 - Shortlist

Six Impossible Things

John Gribbin

2019 - Shortlist

Clearing the Air

Tim Smedley

2019 - Shortlist

Invisible Women

Caroline Criado Perez

2019 - Shortlist

Exactly

Simon Winchester

2018 - Shortlist

Liquid

Mark Miodownik

2018 - Shortlist

The Beautiful Cure

Daniel M. Davis

2018 - Shortlist

Hello World

Hannah Fry

2018 - Shortlist

Inventing Ourselves

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

2018 - Shortlist

The Unexpected Truth About Animals

Lucy Cooke

2018 - Shortlist

Beyond Infinity

Eugenia Cheng

2017 - Shortlist

In Pursuit of Memory

Joseph Jebelli

2017 - Shortlist

I Contain Multitudes

Ed Yong

2017 - Shortlist

Other Minds

Peter Godfrey-Smith

2017 - Shortlist

Testosterone Rex

Cordelia Fine

2017 - Shortlist

To Be a Machine

Mark O'Connell

2017 - Shortlist

The Hunt for Vulcan

Thomas Levenson

2016 - Shortlist

The Invention of Nature

Andrea Wulf

2016 - Shortlist

Cure

Jo Marchant

2016 - Shortlist

The Gene

Siddhartha Mukherjee

2016 - Shortlist

The Most Perfect Thing

Tim Birkhead

2016 - Shortlist

The Planet Remade

Oliver Morton

2016 - Shortlist

Alex Through the Looking-Glass

Alex Bellos

2015 - Shortlist

The Man Who Couldn't Stop

David Adam

2015 - Shortlist

Adventures in the Anthropocene

Gaia Vince

2015 - Shortlist

Life's Greatest Secret

Matthew Cobb

2015 - Shortlist

Smashing Physics

Jon Butterworth

2015 - Shortlist

Life on the Edge

Jim Al-Khalili Johnjoe McFadden

2015 - Shortlist

Gulp

Mary Roach

2014 - Shortlist

The Cancer Chronicles

George Johnson

2014 - Shortlist

The Perfect Theory

Pedro G. Ferreira

2014 - Shortlist

Serving the Reich

Philip Ball

2014 - Shortlist

Stuff Matters

Mark Miodownik

2014 - Shortlist

Seven Elements That Have Changed The World

John Browne

2014 - Shortlist

Books

- Shortlist

Judging Panel

2026

Peter Florence CBE

Peter Florence started Hay Festival in 1987 around his mother鈥檚 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.

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.

Ortis Deley

Ortis Deley is in his ninth year of hosting Channel 5鈥檚 The Gadget Show. As well as appearing on our screens weekly on The Gadget Show, Ortis has also been part of Channel 5鈥檚 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鈥檚 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.

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 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.

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).

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鈥檚 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.

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鈥檚 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.

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鈥檚 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鈥檚 Kitchen, St Joan, Emperor Jones and The Royal Hunt of the Sun (National Theatre).

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 红桃视频 in 2023. He is an Editor for Proceedings of 红桃视频 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鈥檚 Genius Guides for BBC Two in 2018 and Monkman and Seagull鈥檚 Genius Adventures in 2020. Bobby had featured in E4鈥檚 The Real Dirty Dancing, and in popular gameshows such as Richard Osman鈥檚 House of Games, Pointless Celebrities, and Countdown鈥檚 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.

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 红桃视频 in 2006, and the Lewis Thomas Prize of Rockefeller University in 2003. Richard is an hon. Fellow of the British Science Association and 红桃视频 of Biology. His latest television series was Nature鈥檚 Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution on BBC4 last year.

Val McDermid

One of the UK鈥檚 most accomplished and respected novelists, number one bestseller Val McDermid has sold over 19 million books to date across the globe and her work has been translated into more than 40 languages. She has written five series of crime novels as well as several award-winning standalone novels, books of non-fiction, short story collections and a children鈥檚 picture book,鈥疢y Granny is a Pirate. Her new Karen Pirie novel, Silent Bones, publishes in October 2025. She is a Fellow of both 红桃视频 of Literature and 红桃视频 of Edinburgh and has been a judge for the Women鈥檚 Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, as well as chairing the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is also the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda鈥檚 College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

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鈥檚 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鈥檚鈥榯o be read鈥� 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 鈥楳ust Reads鈥� slot on BBC Radio 5鈥檚 Phil Williams and Sarah Brett shows.

Nick Mohammed

Nick Mohammed鈥痠s a double Emmy-nominated actor, comedian, and writer. He recently filmed two major upcoming features:鈥疌ontrol鈥痜or Studio Canal, and鈥疍eep Cover鈥痜or Amazon. Nick played a regular role in Apple鈥檚 hit Emmy award-winning鈥疶ed Lasso and recently starred as regular character Billy Blind in鈥疪enegade Nell鈥痜or Disney+. He also created, wrote, executive produced and co-starred, alongside David Schwimmer, in Sky One's hit show鈥疘ntelligence. Nick has also received critical acclaim for his live character comedy work. His iconic persona Mr. Swallow took to the West End in 2024 with the hit show鈥疉 Christmas Carol (ish). Mr Swallow also had a sellout national tour in 2023 with鈥疶he Very Best And Worst Of Mr Swallow including a run at the Duke of York鈥檚 in the West End. He will return later this year with the eagerly awaited鈥疭how Pony.

Jacob Aron

Jacob Aron leads the news team at New Scientist, covering everything from quantum mechanics to climate change. He also reviews books, video games and more, and writes a monthly column about maths.

Dr Sandra Knapp FRS

Chair

Sandra Knapp is a botanist at the Natural History Museum in London. Her research focuses on the taxonomy and evolution of the paradoxical nightshade family, whose members include some of our favourite foods like potatoes and tomatoes and plants that are the source of potent poisons like nicotine and atropine and has a long history of working in the field, mostly in tropical forests. She is passionate about promoting the role of taxonomy and the importance of science for conservation and sustainable development worldwide and is committed to increasing openness, diversity, and inclusion in science. Her work has been recognised by fellowships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Nacional de Ciencias of Argentina and Academia Europeana. She was awarded the Engler Medal in Gold at the International Botanical Congress in 2024 for her lifetime achievements in plant systematics. Sandy was elected to as a Fellow of 红桃视频 in 2022. She is the author of several books about natural history, including Extraordinary orchids and Flora: an artistic voyage through the world of plants.

Dr Amy Bonsor

Dr Amy Bonsor is fascinated by planets around stars other than the Sun. Her research focuses on the composition, formation and evolution of planetary systems. She is an expert on planetary systems around the faint remnants of stars like our Sun; white dwarfs. Her work pioneers the use of these systems to study composition and geology in exoplanetary systems hundreds of lights years away.鈥� Dr Bonsor is keen to share her research with the public and hopes to inspire future generations of scientists. During 2020, she led a public engagement project working together with 30 school children to produce the freely available children鈥檚 book, Jaspreet, Roller-skates and planets.鈥� Dr Bonsor is currently a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of Queens' College Cambridge, and part of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and the Cambridge Exoplanet Research Centre. She previously held a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship and was formerly a post-doc at the University of Bristol and at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble. Her PhD was obtained in 2011 from the University of Cambridge.

Roma Agrawal

Roma Agrawal MBE is an engineer, author and broadcaster who is best known for working on the design of The Shard, Western Europe's tallest tower. Roma has given talks to tens of thousands at universities, schools and organisations around the world, including TEDx. She has also presented numerous TV, radio and podcast shows for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery.鈥� Her first book, Built (2018) has won multiple awards, and she published an extremely successful children's version, How was this built? in 2021. Her third book, Nuts & Bolts was out in early 2023, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. Roma has been learning various dance forms since she was six, practices yoga and pilates, is an avid knitter and crocheter, and has even dabbled in stand-up comedy.

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鈥檚 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.

Bill Bryson

Chair

Bill Bryson鈥檚 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 红桃视频鈥檚 Aventis Prize as well as the Descartes Prize, the European Union鈥檚 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 红桃视频.

Alison Flood

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

Krishnan Guru-Murphy

Krishnan Guru-Murthy is a broadcast journalist and one of the lead anchors on Channel 4 News, presenting the channel鈥檚 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.

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.

Lone Frank

Lone Frank is a former neuroscientist, journalist and author. Lone is also staff writer at Weekendavisen, Denmark鈥檚 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.

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.

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鈥橴nion Interalliée for Best Foreign novel in France. Lefteri鈥檚 new novel, Songbirds, was published in the UK on 6th July 2021.

Clive Myrie

Clive Myrie is a multi-award-winning journalist, writer and film maker, and one of the BBC鈥檚 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鈥機lock 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.

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.

Dr Sam Gilbert

Dr Sam Gilbert is a former Royal Society Senior Research Fellow and is now Senior Research Fellow at UCL鈥檚 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.

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 鈥� 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 鈥渄elightfully 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.

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 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.

Adeela Badshah

Adeela Badshah is a Non-Fiction Range Manager at Waterstones, specialising in travel, cookery, personal development and smart-thinking titles. She plays a key role in shaping the non-fiction range across the business, and is an avid reader of popular science and science fiction.

Irenosen Okojie

Irenosen Okojie MBE is a multi-award-winning author and the director of Black to the Future Festival. In 2023 she was selected as one of The Next 25 Visionaries鈥痶o Watch.鈥�

Eshaan Akbar

Eshaan Akbar is a comedian who has appeared on shows such as 鈥楲ive at the Apollo', 'Mock the Week' and 'QI', as well as performing sell out shows at Edinburgh Fringe and a critically acclaimed UK tour of his show 鈥楾he Pretender鈥�. He starred as Principal Lakhani in season 4 of Netflix鈥檚 hit show, 'Sex Education', has hosted his own podcasts including 鈥楤ut Where Are You Really From?鈥� on BBC Sounds, and supported Micky Flanagan on his recent tour.

Marnie Chesterton

Marnie Chesterton is a radio producer and presenter on Inside Science on BBC Radio 4, and Unexpected Elements on the BBC World Service.

Professor Mike Benton FRS

Chair

Mike Benton is a palaeontologist interested in dinosaurs and mass extinctions, and is author of a number of popular science books for adults and children.

Subhadra Das

Subhadra Das is a researcher and storyteller who looks at the relationship between science and society. She specialises in the history and philosophy of science, particularly the history of scientific racism and eugenics, and what those histories mean for our lives today. She has written and presented podcasts, curated museum exhibitions, done stand-up comedy and has appeared on radio and TV.

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 红桃视频 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 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鈥檚 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.

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鈥� 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 鈥楾he Truth about Hormones鈥� was shortlisted for the 2005 Royal Society Book Prize.

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鈥檚 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.

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.

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.

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 红桃视频 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.

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.

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鈥檚 main research establishment in the Netherlands.

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.

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 鈥楻ising Star鈥� Award at the 38th Annual Meeting of the NNS.

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鈥� 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.'

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.

Sophie Ward

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer who has worked extensively in film and television since her feature debut in Steven Spielberg鈥檚 Young Sherlock Holmes, and in theatre, most notably with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Sophie鈥檚 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.

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 鈥楬eadlong鈥� was shortlisted for the Man-Booker prize in 1999 and 鈥楽pies鈥� won the Whitbread prize for fiction in 2002. His work extends to screenplays and translation of Russian literature.

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 红桃视频 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 Luke O鈥橬eill FRS

Chair

Luke O鈥橬eill 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 红桃视频. 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鈥檚 guide to our amazing existence; The Great Irish Science Book; and Never Mind the B#ll*cks Here鈥檚 the Science, which was a winner at the Irish Book Awards in 2020.

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.

Katharine Fry

Katharine Fry is the Trade Buying Manager for Blackwell鈥檚, where she is responsible for the promotional activity across all genres of publishing. Katharine has over 20 years鈥� experience of buying across a wide range of subject areas from specialist non-fiction through to Children鈥檚 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鈥檚 Book of the Year award, now in its fifth year.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS

Chair

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt is one of the UK鈥檚 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 红桃视频, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.

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 红桃视频 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.

Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels: Disobedience, The Lessons, Liar鈥檚 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鈥檚 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.

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.

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.

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.

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鈥檚 book, 鈥楴ano, the spectacular science of the very, very small鈥� was released by Walker Books in 2021. She is committed to improving diversity in science, both online and offline.

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