Convene, connect, engage

Mark Miodownik is the UCL Professor of Materials & Society. He received his PhD in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University, and has worked as a materials engineer in the USA, Ireland and the UK. For more than twenty years he has championed materials science research that links to the arts and humanities, medicine, and society. This culminated in the establishment of the UCL Institute of Making, where he is a director and runs the research programme. Mark is a multi-award winning author and regularly presents BBC TV and radio programmes on materials science and engineering. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting.

Sandra Knapp obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Botany from Pomona College, in Claremont, California and her PhD in 1986 from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. She is a specialist on the taxonomy of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and has spent much time in the field in Central and South America collecting plants. She came to the Natural History Museum, London, in 1992 to manage the international project Flora Mesoamericana--a synoptic inventory of the approximately 18,000 species of plants of southern Mexico and the isthmus of Central America. She is also the author of several popular books on the history of science and botanical exploration, including the award-winning Potted Histories (2004). She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and actively involved in promoting the role of taxonomy and its significance to conservation worldwide. Dr. Knapp is an elected member of the councils of Fauna and Flora International, the Linnean Society of London, the Organization Pro-Flora Neotropica, the International Association of Plant Taxonomy and the Tropical Biology Association. She is on the editorial board of several scientific journals including BMC Evolutionary Biology, Taxon, Oryx and Systematics and Biodiversity and is a member of Faculty of 1000. Her current projects include Flora Mesoamericana, a world-wide taxonomic monograph of the megadiverse genus Solanum (Solanaceae), collaborative research in pjhylogenetics and genomic evolution of Solanaceae, and the production of field guides for use in biodiversity monitoring in South and Central America. 

Tom, a Senior Lecturer in Geography, is an interdisciplinary environmental researcher whose research and teaching explore the environmental and social challenges of aquatic pollution. Tom has led multiple community-centred research projects that have involved research collaborations with members of the public using smartphone apps, local archives, creative practice, and Gaelic heritage. Tom's community science has integrated communities across the breadth of his research processes, from conceptualisation and study design to data collection, analysis, and interpretation through to dissemination and community peer-review.

Elin is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council). Her research involves detecting and analysing the spectroscopic signatures of gaseous molecules in our atmosphere. These types of measurement allow more detailed understanding of atmospheric phenomena and can provide valuable inputs into forecasting models for weather patterns.

She combines a career managing advanced research projects with bringing up two young children.

Helen is the Head of Public Engagement at the University of Bath, leading the Public Engagement Unit which works to support a positive culture of public engagement in research.

Dr Joshua Kestel is a passionate scientist with a particular interest in pollination and conservation. He has specialised in applying molecular technologies to understand the interactions between plants and the animals upon which they often rely to facilitate gene flow.

His research has spanned bird pollination during his Honours studies at the University of Western Australia; the development of environmental metabarcoding applications for detecting insect species in avocado orchards during his PhD at Curtin University; and the examination of genomic diversity to unravel a species complex of an endangered Grevillea and identify the remaining genetic diversity of a Critically Endangered Acacia during his tenure with the Western Australian Government's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.

In 2025, Joshua was awarded a Newton International Fellowship and began his ongoing appointment at the University of Cambridge, where he works with Prof. Beverley Glover on the plant-pollinator interactions of the world's most variable daisy, Gorteria diffusa. In 2026, he was awarded the Royal Society's Public Outreach Fund and began writing a children's book about the pollination of Gorteria diffusa to inspire curiosity about the green kingdom among young learners and help address plant awareness disparity.

Dr Garland completed her PhD in Bioacoustics at the University of Queensland, Australia (2011) and then undertook a three-year National Academy of Sciences (NRC) postdoctoral fellowship at the Marine Mammal Laboratory (NOAA, Seattle, USA). In 2015 she secured a Royal Society Newton International Fellowship at the University of St Andrews and subsequently a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2017 to expand her work on song culture, learning and function. Dr Garland's broad research interests include animal culture, social learning, bioacoustics, and behavioural ecology. Her main research focuses on cetaceans, and in particular the cultural transmission, vocal learning, and function of humpback whale song.

Lee Jowett is a Research Fellow in climate change and sustainability education at Sheffield Hallam University. His work bridges classroom practice and research, with a focus on teacher development and climate curriculum design. He leads an external Sustainable Schools Network and brings over 20 years of education experience to his research.

Marine is a PhD student working with the Phage Collection Project, a citizen science initiative run by Early Career Researchers at the University of Southampton.