I am director of The Good Science Project, a College-wide exploration of research culture, and a collaboration between the Science Communication Unit and the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise). The Project - now in its third year of funding by Research England - organises events that give researchers the opportunity to discuss together the challenges of 'the life scientific' and to share perspectives. One example is a series of lunchtime in-person discussions, called The Friday Forums, each of which examines a particular theme - for example the relationship between scientists and technicians. In September 2023 we organised a large conference, The Day of Doubt, that examined doubt as a vital element in good science. The third series of Friday Forum began in October 2024, and includes a workshop called 'The Role of the Social Sciences at Imperial College. We will be holding our second conference, 'The Prism of Research' in April 2025., which will discuss many 'strands' of science, including the relation between the 'bench' and data science in contemporary science; the concept of friendship as a research asset; and how museums and art can integrate with our science.


I was director of the Science Communication Unit from 2008 to 2021, teaching the philosophy of science, and ethics. As well as running the Good Science Project I am currently preparing a new edition of my biography of Charles Darwin.

My undergraduate degree was in zoology, my postgraduate training in the philosophy of science. My PhD was on art-science collaborations, viewed particularly as a way for scientists to enrich their epistemology and their ethical reasoning. I didn’t go into higher education straightaway, but was a school science teacher for 13 years in various London schools, including being head of biology at Quintin Kynaston School (at that time part of the ILEA). When I was a school teacher, in the 1980s and 90s, school science had a much more questioning and critical curriculum than it does now - a feature of the ILEA system of teaching science - and it was this experience which led me into science communication.

Before coming to Imperial College I was involved in many sorts of science writing, including radio plays for the BBC, children’s books of various sorts, introductory texts to the philosophy of science, and contributing to the Guardian's weather column 'Weatherwatch'. I became co-director of the Birkbeck diploma in science communication in 1995, while teaching part-time at the King Alfred School in Hampstead. In 1999 I was appointed to a curriculum development post at Imperial College, working in many different departments, before concentrating on the work of the Science Communication Unit and the science communication Masters' courses.