World-class Paralympian among leading sports experts delivering talks at Royal Society Lates event

World-class athlete and Paralympic medallist Stef Reid will discuss her relentless pursuit of excellence in sports at the forthcoming Royal Society Summer Science Lates: Sports Science event.

She will be joined by other leading academics and experts in sports science delivering talks, demonstrations, and hands-on activities on sports science.

The over-18s event, which will kick-off the Society’s Summer Science Exhibition (2-7 July), will focus on sports science with academics from across the UK exploring a range of themes. Other activities will include:  

• Dr Neal Smith, reader in Biomechanics at the University of Chichester, will deliver a hands-on activity about his work on the impact of headers in football.
• Researchers from the University of Bath’s CAMERA (Centre for Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications) will give hands-on demonstrations of their sports performance, biomechanics, and human-computer interaction research. Visitors will be able to explore how markerless motion capture research can be used to improve Olympic athletic performance and how it can be used in clinical settings for rehabilitation.
• The evening will also include a talk by Professor Alan Wilson FRS, who will explore the limits to athletic performance in humans, horses and in fast-running African mammals and offer advice on the best strategy to outrun a cheetah!
• And Dr Flaminia Ronca, based at the Institute of Sport Exercise and Health, on how we can best use physical activity to optimise our mental wellbeing and brain health throughout life.

Visitors will also get the chance to have an exclusive look at the 14 flagship exhibits showcasing cutting edge science at this year’s Exhibition. Highlights include listening to ancient air escaping from real ice cores from Antarctica, the opportunity to try on a personal brain scanner, or try dancing with the Baby Boogie challenge. 

The team from JWST will showcase images taken in the two years since its launched. Visitors will also be able to have their say on the ethical and moral questions surrounding the development of stem-celled based embryo models, which could help scientists better understand why birth defects develop, improve IVF and even create personalised cells for therapy.

The Summer Science Lates is a drop-in event which takes place at the Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG on Tuesday 2 July 2024. The event is FREE and open to over-18s only, no ticket is required.

The full Summer Science Exhibition programme, free and open to all ages, will run from 10am on Wednesday 3 July to 6pm on Sunday 7 July 2024. View the full programme.