Food and drink is provided at the reception following the main event. Register online via the Science Challenge website or email Jana Smutna, Science Challenge Chair.
Abstract
Science Challenge is an essay writing (and short video making) competition about science communication annually organized by the Royal College of Science Union. The Launch itself is one of RCSU biggest events. It presents the opportunity for the potential participants to meet the judges, discover the location of the final and the questions.
This year, the Launch will also feature various scientific demonstrations, a guest lecture from former head of MI5 and an opportunity to win tickets for the final.
Speakers and judges
Guest speaker
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller (former Head of MI5, Chairman of the Court andCouncil of Imperial College)
Guest Judges
Professor Fay Dowker (Department of Physics, Imperial)
Plallab Gosh (Science correspondent of BBC News)
Jon Kudlick (Society of Biology)
Jad Marrouche (Depratment of Physics, Imperial)
Biographies
Professor Maggie Dallman is the Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College. She became a Professor of Immunology in 1999. She has published over 100 articles in the field of immunology.
She studied for her undergraduate degree at the University of Bristol, going on to complete her PhD at the University of Oxford. She undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University Medical School before returning to a Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford in 1984. Professor Dallman then held a Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship before joining Imperial in 1994.
Professor Dallman sits on the boards of many external organisations. Amongst others she is currently a Director of the Board of the Francis Crick Institute, sits on the Higher Education Funding Council for England Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategic Advisory Committee and assists a variety of charities with their research funding portfolios. Professor Dallman has held positions of increasing importance at Imperial since 2001.
She was Head of Section for Immunology and Infection and also Campus Dean prior to her appointment as the first Deputy Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences in 2006. She took up her current role as Dean in 2008 and is thus a well-known figure of College life.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller was the Director General of Britain’s Security Service MI5 from 2002 until her retirement in 2007. During her 33 years with the Security Service she led the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, served in Washington throughout the first Gulf War, and led a newly created Irish counter-terrorist section before being appointed Deputy Director General in 1997.
While she was the head of MI5, the service doubled in size, opened new offices and a training academy.In 2005 Eliza Manningham-Buller was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath (DCB). She became a Trustee of the Wellcome Trust Limited in 2008 and is active in the House of Lords. In 2011 she hosted the BBC’s annual Reith Lectures alongside Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, reflecting upon her time with the Security Service.
The Baroness is also currently the Chairman of the Court and Council of Imperial College and thus an important character within the College. She is the 11th Chairman of the council. Her four-year term lasts until 2015, with the possibility of a second four-year term to follow. As the Chairman, her responsibilities include giving the valedictory speech at Imperial College graduation ceremonies each year.
Professor Lord Robert Winston is Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College. He was made a life peer in 1995. He now runs a research programme at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College.
Professor Winston is a Faraday Medal holder from the Royal Society. Other awards include a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship 1973-77, a Blair-Bell Lectureship RCOG, 1978, the Cedric Carter Medal and the Victor Bonney Medal for contributions to surgery, Royal College of Surgeons of London, 1993. He was Gold Medallist for the Royal Society of Health in 1998. He won the Edwin Stevens Medal (the Royal Society of Medicine) in 2003, was the North of England Zoological Society‘s gold medallist in 2004 and won the Al Hammadi Gold Medal at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 2005.
Professor Winston is committed to the scientific education of the public. In 2010 he set up a teaching programme for schoolchildren based at Imperial College, the Wohl Reach Out Laboratory. He has written fourteen popular science books. His most recognisable public role has been as the presenter many BBC television series, including Superhuman, The Secret Life of Twins, Child of Our Time, Human Instinct, and BAFTA award-winning The Human Body.
Dr Jad Marrouche is the man responsible for founding theScience Challenge, as the first president of the reformedRoyal College of Science. In fact he was presented withan Outstanding Service Award by the College “for leading andeffectively building a dynamic faculty Union”.
Dr Marrouche was inspired to create the Science Challenge due to the centenary celebrations of Imperial College in 2007. He arranged for Lord Robert Winston to become the Science Challenge Ambassador and organised the first grand final , which was held in the Ritz.
He is currently a research associate with the Department of Physics here at Imperial College, based at CERN. He did his PhD as part of the High Energy Physics Group after graduating from Imperial in 2007. He worked on the CMS (compact muonsolenoid) experiment at the LHC. As a postgraduate student he received a Student Award for Outstanding Achievement inrecognition of his outreach work.
Dr Marrouche is also the Deputy President of the Royal College of Science Associations (RCSA), the RCSU’s alumni organisation. You can find out more about the RCSA at this event.
Professor Fay Dowker is a Professor of Theoretical Physicsat Imperial College, researching topics including quantum gravity and the foundations of quantum mechanics. She isa member of the Theoretical Physics Group and an Affiliate of theInstitute for Quantum Computing.
Dowker studied at the University of Cambridge and was awarded the Tyson Medal in 1987, a prize awarded for the best performance in subjects relating to astronomy. She completedher PhD under the supervision of Professor Stephen Hawking. Later in her career Dowker was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara and also the California Institute of Technology. She has also been a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. She gave her inaugural lecture in 2012 at Imperial College.
Dowker has appeared in two BBC television films investigating physics concepts: the 2008 Horizon documentary Do YouKnow What Time It Is? presented by Professor Brian Cox, and the 2011 documentary Faster Than the Speed of Light presented by Professor Marcus du Sautoy. This year she has featured in The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4.
Pallab Ghosh is currently a science correspondent for BBC News, reporting on scientifi c advances in areas of public interest. He joined the BBC in 1989 after beginning his journalism career in 1984. Upon join ing the BBC he worked asa general news producer on BBC Radio’s The World at One and then became a senior producer on the Today programme.
Ghosh has previously been named the BT Technology Journalist of the Year. He was President of the World Federationof Science Journalists (WFSJ) from 2007 to 2009, a not-for-profit and non-governmental organisation, representing global science journalists’ associations. He is a former Chairman of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW). He was part of the BBC News science team that won a Sir Arthur C Clarke award for their coverage of stories relating to space in 2009.
Ghosh has a long history with Imperial College, having studied undergraduate physics here. He went on to become the editor of Felix, Imperial’s student newspaper, in the 1983-1984 academic year, and has said that his time with Felix helped to prepare him for his career as a science journalist.
Jon Kudlick has many years’ experience in senior communications roles within the not-for-profit sector. Having completed a degree in French and German, Jon started his career in the market research industry, and after four years, he moved into the not-for-profit sector as head of Fellowship at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).
Since then he has stayed in the sector, moving from the RSA to being head of membership at RNID (the charity for the deafand hard of hearing, now called Action on Hearing Loss), and then to his current role as director of membership, marketing and communications at the Society of Biology. He joined in 2008, when the organisation was the Institute of Biology, and was brought in to manage the brand and marketing work for the merger, which formed the Society of Biology in October 2009.
Jon’s responsibilities include the Society’s membership, press and PR, social media, public engagement activity, publications, the website and events, as well as Biology Week (devised byJon and launched last year in 2012), the science communication awards, photography competition and book awards. In addition, Jon is currently a trustee for the deaf charity, Sign Health.