The Life Scientific Interview

After doing a night bottle feed of our youngest in the wee hours of the morning some nights earlier this week, in order to help me get back to sleep I decided to turn on BBC Sounds to find a programme to listen to… and lo and behold, look what had just aired live! The programme that I’d recorded at Broadcasting House a few weeks ago in London.

So it is out now. It is an episode of Jim Al-Khalili’s excellent BBC Radio 4 programme “The Life Scientific”. The show is very much in the spirit of what (as you know) I strive to do in my work in the public sphere (including this blog): discuss the science an individual does right alongside aspects of the broader life of that individual. I recommend listening to the whole series of interviews, which is archived on their website. As a Radio 4 listener since I was a teenager, and knowing the list of really excellent scientists who have been guests on the show, it was a huge honour to be asked to be on the program. Moreover, I’m very impressed by Jim’s interviewing skills as well as the production and editing skills of Lucy Taylor (the producer) in turning our wide-ranging conversation into a half hour show that covered so much without sounding like a headlong rush.

I got to talk about my work in quantum gravity and string theory, aspects of my career path, early life, my work on putting science into the public sphere via books, movies, etc., and also aspects of the stunning lack of representation of people of African descent in academia.

Anyway, the episode itself can be found here. I hope you enjoy it.

–cvj