Judges Biography

Syngenta ABSW Science Writers' Awards

HISTORY

Judges

Prof Joe Cann FRS

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds

Joe is a marine geologist who has been investigating the creation of the ocean crust since pre-plate tectonic days. All aspects of the ocean crust have been meat and drink to him .... seafloor volcanoes, stretching and faulting of new ocean floor, the black smoker hot springs and the strange creatures that live around them. He retired a few years ago from a chair at Leeds, and before that was at Newcastle and the University of East Anglia. He is passionate not only about excellence in science but also about excellence in the communication of science. He has written pieces for popular publications, appeared on radio and television and given public talks about the ocean floor and radioactive waste disposal. Joe is author of more than 100 refereed papers, an FRS, has an adjunct position at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod and is Secretary for External and Foreign Affairs at The Geological Society of London.

Dr Graham Easton

GP & Freelance Medical Journalist

Graham is a GP in west London and a freelance medical journalist. He has been a senior producer and presenter for BBC Radio Science for more than 10 years, where he has presented a range of programmes from Radio 4’s Case Notes and Pick of The Week to Science in Action and Health Matters on the World Service. He also spent four years as an editor at the BMJ. Graham’s medical training was at The Royal London Hospital and on the Oxford Region training scheme for general practice. He also has a masters degree with distinction in Science Communication from Imperial College, London.

Dr Evan harris MP (Oxford West & Abingdon)

Evan studied physiological sciences at Wadham College, Oxford, and then medicine at Oxford University Clinical School, qualifying in 1991. Having trained in emergency hospital medicine in Liverpool and at the Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, in 1994 he took up an honorary public health registrar post with the Regional Health Authority, as the medical officer to the Task Force on Junior Doctors’ Hours, charged with implementing the ‘New Deal’. An active trade unionist, Evan was local BMA representative and negotiator from 1992 to 1994, and was then elected to the National Council of the BMA. He was selected to fight Oxford West and Abingdon for the Liberal Democrats in 1994. Following his election in 1997, he was a junior health spokesman, then spokesman on higher education, science and women’s issues. Following his re-election in 2001 he was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Health, standing down for personal reasons in 2003. Evan has a long-standing interest and campaigning record in anti-racism and refugee rights. He served on Oxford’s local research ethics committee, and is active in medical ethics and civil liberties issues. He has worked as a trained HIV/AIDS counsellor, and is Honorary President of the Liberal Democrat Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights (DELGA), as well as being a vice-president of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA). He is a member of the Oxford Diocesan Board of Social Responsibility and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

Dr Robin Lovell-Badge FRS

Head, Division of Developmental Genetics, National Institute for Medical Research

Robin is a research scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research, involved in looking at the role of genes in embryonic development. Following a PhD in London and post-doctoral research in Cambridge and Paris, Robin set up his lab at the Medical Research Council more than 20 years ago. Robin’s serious work focuses on sex determination and the earliest aspects of embryonic development and stem cells; he has also been known to draw cartoons (for Nature Genetics) and drives a purple Lotus.

Carlo Massarella

Producer & Director, Windfall Films

Carlo has devised, produced and directed science, technology and history series for British, American and Canadian television channels including the BBC, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Channel 4 and Five. These include The Day the World Took Off (C4), The Secrets of Life (C4), Voyage in Time & Space (C4) and several editions of Equinox. Carlo produced and directed three films in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 series, DNA, which marked the 50th anniversary of the double helix in 2003, winning a Syngenta ABSW Award and EMMY for DNA:The Human Race – a definitive account of the Human Genome Project which included contributions from all the leading scientists involved, and former US President, Bill Clinton.

Dr Ted Nield

Chairman, ABSW

Prior to entering the world of journalism, Ted gained a PhD in geology at University College Cardiff and worked as a consultant carbonate sedimentologist. As a science journalist, he has written for most broadsheet newspapers and popular science magazines, and also published two palaeontology textbooks with Pergamon Press. Ted joined The Geological Society of London in 1997. He is editor of the Society’s monthly magazine, Geoscientist, and website, www.geolsoc.org, editor of the Society’s annual report, and obituaries editor. He also specialises in the public relations of membership organisations and the public perception of science through film and television drama. Ted has recently signed with Granta to write a popular science book on the Supercontinent Cycle and the history of the idea of lost supercontinents called Supercontinent – our once and future world to be published in 2007. He is Chairman of the ABSW and Chair, Outreach, International Year of Planet Earth.

Tim Radford

Tim Radford retired as science editor of The Guardian last year. Born in New Zealand, he trained as a journalist on the daily New Zealand Herald. He arrived in Britain in 1961, and apart from a brief period in the UK government information services between 1968 and 1973, has spent his professional life in weekly, evening and daily newspapers. He joined The Guardian in 1973 and was (among other things) letters editor, arts editor and literary editor. Except for a brief interval, he also edited The Guardian’s science pages since their launch in 1980, until his retirement. Tim has won five ABSW Science Writers’ Awards.

Martin Redfern

Senior Producer, BBC Science Radio

Martin studied geology at UCL and has worked at the BBC for 30 years, mostly in radio science broadcasting, first for the World Service and now in the merged Radio Science Unit that provides science programmes for World Service and Radio 4. His work has ranged from live news coverage of space missions to major documentary series on geology and archaeology. He has won three ABSW Science Writers’ Awards, for Mission to Turkana (Hydatid disease in Kenya – 1985); Marking Time (a dramatisation of John Harrison’s battle for the Longuitude prize – 1992) and in 2004 for The New Space Race. He ventured, briefly, into television in the 1980s but finds the scenery better on radio. In his spare time Martin has written a few print articles and books, including the Kingfisher books of Space & Planet Earth and The Earth – A Very Short Introduction, dug over his Kentish vegetable patch a few times and emptied a bottle or two of wine.

Andrew Sugden

International Managing Editor, Science

Andrew has a degree in botany from Oxford University where he also earned his doctoral degree in tropical rain forest ecology in 1980. He completed his postdoctoral assignment at Cambridge University in 1985. Andrew’s research emphasised tropical rain forest ecology, especially in the mountains of Colombia and Venezuela. His subsequent publishing career has included positions as founding editor of the international monthly review journal, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, from 1986 until 1999. He also served as co-editor of the history-of-science quarterly, Endeavour, from 1996 until 1999, founding editor of Trends in Plant Sciences, and managing editor at Elsevier Trends Journals. Since that time, he has served as Science’s senior editor responsible for ecology and evolution and, from the journal’s European headquarters in Cambridge, as international managing editor.

Michael White

Political Editor - The Guardian

Michael White has been writing for The Guardian for over 30 years, as a reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist. He was political editor from 1990-2006, having previously been the paper’s Washington correspondent between 1984 and 1988 and parliamentary sketchwriter between 1977 and 1984. He has reported from over 50 countries. Michael was born in Cornwall and read History at UCL.