As an experimental scientist there are many skills to learn on the way to a successful scientific career. But there are a wide range of other activities a scientist can contribute to society, either as well or instead of a career of experimentation and publication. These have their own fascination and frustrations. I will talk about actions and roles beyond the bench scientists can contribute to, and why they both matter and can be fascinating in their own right.
Athene Donald is distinguished scientist becoming a FRS for her work relating mechanical properties to the structure of polymers.
She is Professor Emerita of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, and the Master of Churchill College, Cambridge.
She was a member of the Council of Cambridge University. She has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, and was appointed a Trustee of the Science Museum Group from 2011-16. She was a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council from 2013-2018. She chaired the Scientific Advisory Council of the Department of Culture, Media and Sports from 2015 to 2017.
From 2006 to 2014 Dame Athene was director of WiSETI, Cambridge University's Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, and she was the University's first Gender Equality Champion from 2010 to 2014. Outside the University, she chaired the Athena Forum from 2009 to 2013. She sat on the BIS (later BEIS) Diversity group and serves the Equality and Diversity Board of Sheffield University and the Gender Balance Working Group of the ERC; she is a Patron of the Daphne Jackson Trust.
She is the author of ‘Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science’, published in 2023.
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Chi Onwurah MP has had a highly successful career in science, engineering and politics. Chi attended Kenton Comprehensive School in Newcastle, then studied Electrical Engineering at Imperial College. Before entering politics she held senior positions in telecoms and software, culminating in her appointment as Head of Telecoms Technology at OFCOM.
Chi chairs various All Party Parliamentary Groups including Diversity and Inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, and is Vice Chair of the Internet, Communications, and Technology Parliamentary group.
Dame Sue Ion is Honorary President of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear (NSAN) and a member of the ONR Independent Advisory Panel. She was Chair of the UK Government’s Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board. Dame Sue was also the UK's representative on the IAEA Standing Advisory Group on Nuclear Energy 2000-2007 and Chair of the Euratom Science and Technology Committee until 2018.
We live in an age in which the power of computers and the data available to them increases exponentially. This has led to systems that demonstrate superhuman abilities. This, in turn, raises questions about the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI). What is the reality and what do we understand about making smart software and engineering intelligent systems? AI systems require prodigious amounts of data, and data drives many aspects of our modern world.
How far can we trust the data itself and what are the challenges of the new data ecosystem that is emerging? There are concerns about what these developments mean for us all as human beings. How will we fit into a landscape of engineered intelligent systems? This lecture will draw on four decades of personal research in AI and will reflect on the fundamental importance of engineering throughout.
Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS FREng is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Oxford and Principal of Jesus College, Oxford. He is Chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. In 1978 he joined the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh as a PhD student. He has researched and published on topics ranging from cognitive psychology to computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence to the Semantic Web.
He is the co-author of The Spy in the Coffee Machine and in 2018 he published The Digital Ape: how to live (in peace) with smart machines, described as a ‘landmark book’. He has been heavily involved in the commercial exploitation of his research. He has advised government and helped lead and develop the UK’s Open Data policy. In 2013 he was knighted for ‘services to science and engineering’.
Perhaps the best way to appreciate the technological potential of controlled molecular-level motion is to recognise that nanomotors and molecular-level machines lie at the heart of every significant biological process. Over billions of years of evolution Nature has not repeatedly chosen this solution for achieving complex task performance without good reason.
In stark contrast to biology, none of mankind’s fantastic myriad of present day technologies exploit controlled molecular-level motion in any way at all: every catalyst, every material, every polymer, every pharmaceutical, every chemical reagent, all function exclusively through their static or equilibrium dynamic properties. When we learn how to build artificial structures that can control and exploit molecular level motion, and interface their effects directly with other molecular-level substructures and the outside world, it will potentially impact on every aspect of functional molecule and materials design. An improved understanding of physics and biology will surely follow.
The speaker for the inaugural lecture in the series was Sir Richard Friend, Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St John's College. His research group is one of a number that became established following the growing interest in molecular electronics that Sir Gareth Roberts did so much to promote. His research achievements and his contributions to science more generally have been recognized by, inter alia, election to Fellowship of the Royal Society and a knighthood. The research has also had considerable industrial impact, not least through the founding of a number of spin-out companies.
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