Summary
Ellen Dowell is a creative producer of science engagement, curator and interdisciplinary facilitator. She works part-time for Imperial College London developing creative science engagement projects for the National Heart & Lung Institute (NHLI).
At NHLI Ellen has produced two pop up shops, The Heart and Lung Repair Shop and The Heart and Lung Convenience Store which won a President's Award for Excellence in Societal Engagement and were a finalist in the NCCPE Engage Award. Ellen also wrote Pop Up Science, a guide to transforming empty shops into creative spaces for science engagement.
Ellen facilitates the Breathing Together engagement programme in collaboration with OKIDO. As part of this programme she has co-developed a training workshop for researchers to engage with under fives and their parents and she has co-produced the Breathing Together Play and Learn Activity Guide.
Ellen has a BA in Theatre: Design for Performance from Central St Martins College of Art and Design and an MSc in Science Communication from the University of the West of England.
From 2009 to 2019 Ellen curated and produced Einstein’s Garden, the science, nature and environment area of the Green Man Festival. From 2010 to 2015 she facilitated an EPSRC funded interdisciplinary collaboration programme at the University of Surrey. In 2014 and 2015 Ellen produced two summer festival projects at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in collaboration with Angel Exit Theatre. Ellen co-founded Qualia Theatre, a company making theatre inspired by science, producing work from 2007 to 2012.
Ellen has been awarded public engagement with science grants including a Wellcome Trust Society Award, two Wellcome Trust People Awards, a Research Councils UK Partner Festival Award and a Physiological Society Public Engagement Grant.
As a freelance workshop facilitator, previous clients include: the Francis Crick Institute, the British Science Association, the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Tanzania and Carnegie UK Trust.
Ellen has previously been a trustee of Curious Directive and is a fellow of the RSA.