Biography
Freeman was born in March 1974 in Maryland, United States. [1] [2] Her mother is a theoretical physicist, her father trained as a chemist, and her sister is a mathematician. [3] She studied biological sciences at the University of Oxford, before remaining at the university to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in zoology. [4] [5] Her 1998 doctoral thesis was titled "Butterflies as Signal Receivers" and was supervised by Tim Guilford. [6] One of her tutors was Richard Dawkins. [3] As a postgraduate, she was a member of Linacre College, Oxford and the Department of Zoology. [6]
From 2000 to 2016, Freeman worked for the BBC, [4] within its BBC Science department and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit. [3] As a producer or director, she was involved in Walking with Beasts , Life in the Undergrowth , Bang Goes the Theory , Climate Change by Numbers and Trust Me, I'm a Doctor . [7]
In 2016, Freeman joined the University of Cambridge as executive director of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication in the Faculty of Mathematics. [8]
In 2018 Freeman proposed a new approach to scientific publishing in the form of the Octopus platform designed to publish 'smaller units of publication' and to promote the principles of open science. [9] In 2021 Octopus received a grant from Research England to develop the platform into a global service. [10]
Freeman was recommended for appointment as a non-party-political life peer by the House of Lords Appointments Commission in May 2024. [1] She had applied for the role after hearing a member of the House of Lords speak on the radio about the need for more peers who could understand scientific evidence. [11] [12] She was created Baroness Freeman of Steventon, of Abingdon in the County of Oxfordshire, on 5 June 2024, [13] and was introduced to the House of Lords on 29 July as a crossbencher. [14] [15] On 31 October 2024, she made her maiden speech in the Lords during a take-note debate on science and technology contributions to the UK economy. [3]
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