Katherine Mathieson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 17 August 1975 |
| Alma mater | Selwyn College, Cambridge Imperial College London |
| Known for | Science communication |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | British Science Association |
Katherine Theresa Stewart Mathieson (born 17 August 1975) is the Director of the Royal Institution and former Chief Executive of the British Science Association. She previously led the science education projects at Nesta.
Mathieson was born on 17 August 1975 in Durham, the daughter of Martin and Susan Mathieson. She received her BSc in Natural Sciences from Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1996. She completed a Masters in Science Communication at Imperial College London in 1999. [1] [2] She earned two postgraduate diplomas, in Information Science from the City University of London in 2003 and in Voluntary Sector Management from Cass Business School in 2011. [3]
Mathieson worked as a GP rep for Merck & Co. from 1996 to 1998. In 1999, she became a Science Information Officer for Science Line until joining the Forensic Science Service as an Information Scientist from 2000 to 2002. [1] [4] Mathieson led science education and enterprise education at Nesta from 2000. [5] [6] She contributed to the Institute of Physics' report Girls in the Physics Classroom. [7] As Director of Education at the British Science Association, Mathieson coordinated outreach activities for school teachers and their students. [8] Mathieson encourages others to take part in citizen science. [9]
In 2015 she joined the King's College London Youth Access and Equity Research and Practice Agenda. [10] She took part in the UK Government's Science Communication enquiry in June 2015. [11] In July 2016 Mathieson took up the role as chief executive of the British Science Association in July 2016. [12] At the British Science Association she works to make science as fundamental to society. [13] She launched Not Just for Scientists a campaign that looked for "ideas from people who would like to contribute to debate about science’s role in society". [14] In 2017 Mathieson met the Duke of York. [15] She is worried about the teaching of practical science at schools. [16] In 2018 she became concerned that Brian Cox and David Attenborough did not make science accessible to all of the general public. [17]
Mathieson has written for the Huffington Post, The Guardian , The Independent and Open Access Government. [18] [19] [20] [21] She appeared on the radio and been on several podcasts. [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] Mathieson is a Girlguiding leader and is a trustee at the Royal Commonwealth Society. [27] She is a Brownie leader. [2] She has taken part in a PricewaterhouseCoopers Tech She Can charter. [28]
Since spring 2022 Mathieson has been Director of the Royal Institution. [29]
The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch. Its foundational principles were diffusing the knowledge of, and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, as well as enhancing the application of science to the common purposes of life.
The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chief Executive is Katherine Mathieson. The BSA's mission is to get more people engaged in the field of science by coordinating, delivering, and overseeing different projects that are suited to achieve these goals. The BSA "envisions a society in which a diverse group of people can learn and apply the sciences in which they learn." and is managed by a professional staff located at their Head Office in the Wellcome Wolfson Building. The BSA offers a wide variety of activities and events that both recognize and encourage people to be involved in science. These include the British Science Festival, British Science Week, the CREST Awards, Huxley Summit, Media Fellowships Scheme, along with regional and local events.
The Science Council is a UK organisation that was established by Royal Charter in 2003. The principal activity of The Science Council is the promotion of the advancement and dissemination of knowledge of and education in science pure and applied, for the public benefit. The Science Council is the Competent Authority with respect to the European Union directive 2005/36/EC. It is a membership organisation for learned and professional bodies across science and its applications and works with them to represent this sector to government and others. Together, the member organisations represent over 350,000 scientists. The Science Council provides a forum for discussion and exchange of views and works to foster collaboration between member organisations and the wider science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical communities to enable inter-disciplinary contributions to science policy and the application of science.
Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974; however, she was not one of the prize's recipients.
Birkbeck, University of London, is a public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' Institute by its founder, Sir George Birkbeck, and its supporters, Jeremy Bentham, J. C. Hobhouse and Henry Brougham, Birkbeck is one of the few universities to specialise in evening higher education in the United Kingdom.
Dame Julia Stretton Higgins is a British polymer scientist. Since 1976 she has been based at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, where she is emeritus professor and senior research investigator.
Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on BBC radio and television, and a frequent commentator about science in other British media.
Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the public awareness of and interest in science, influencing people’s attitudes and behaviors, informing public policy, and engaging with diverse communities to address societal problems. The term “science communication” generally refers to settings in which audiences are not experts on the scientific topic being discussed (outreach), though some authors categorize expert-to-expert communication as a type of science communication. Examples of outreach include science journalism and health communication. Since science has political, moral, and legal implications, science communication can help bridge gaps between different stakeholders in public policy, industry, and civil society.
Margaret Ebunoluwa Aderin-Pocock is a British space scientist and science educator. She is an honorary research associate of University College London's Department of Physics and Astronomy, and has been the chancellor of the University of Leicester since February 2023. Since February 2014, she has co-presented the long-running astronomy television programme The Sky at Night with Chris Lintott. In 2020 she was awarded the Institute of Physics William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize for her public engagement in physics. She is the first black woman to win a gold medal in the Physics News Award and she served as the president of the British Science Association from 2021 to 2022.
Sir Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov is a Russian-British physicist, and a professor at the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, National University of Singapore. He is also the Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. His work on graphene with Andre Geim earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.
Michelle Yvonne Simmons, is a Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales and has twice been an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. She is the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology and is recognised internationally as the creator of the field of atomic electronics. She was the inaugural editor-in-chief of npj Quantum Information, an academic journal publishing articles in the emerging field of quantum information science. On 25 January 2018, Simmons was named as the 2018 Australian of the Year for her work and dedication to quantum information science. On 10 June 2019, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours in recognition of her "distinguished service to science education as a leader in quantum and atomic electronics and as a role model."
Sir Peter William Mathieson is an English nephrologist and current principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh. Previously, he served as the vice-chancellor and president of the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Bristol before he assumed office at the HKU in April 2014, and was previously director of studies at Christ's College, Cambridge.
Physics outreach encompasses facets of science outreach and physics education, and a variety of activities by schools, research institutes, universities, clubs and institutions such as science museums aimed at broadening the audience for and awareness and understanding of physics. While the general public may sometimes be the focus of such activities, physics outreach often centers on developing and providing resources and making presentations to students, educators in other disciplines, and in some cases researchers within different areas of physics.
Registered Science Technician (RSciTech) is a professional qualification in the United Kingdom for science technicians. It was introduced in 2011 alongside Registered Scientist as an extension to the UK Science Council's existing professional register for Chartered Scientists. the Registered Science Technician (RSciTech) was developed with the support of the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, with the aim of increasing the professionalism and recognition of those working in technical roles in science. Holders of this qualification can use the post-nominal letters RSciTech. Registration as RSciTech has been encouraged by institutions such as Imperial College London, and the UK Government's Science manufacturing technician and Laboratory technician apprenticeship standards are designed to lead to registration as an RSciTech.
Nicole Grobert FRSC FYAE is a German-British materials chemist. She is a professor of nanomaterials at the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a Royal Society industry fellow at Williams Advanced Engineering. Grobert is the chair of the European Commission's Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.
Sheila Rowan is a Scottish physicist and academic, who is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and director of its Institute for Gravitational Research since 2009. She is known for her work in advancing the detection of gravitation waves. In 2016, Rowan was appointed the (part-time) Chief Scientific Advisor to the Scottish Government.
Dani Rabaiotti is an English environmental scientist and popular science writer based at the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Does It Fart, as well as two other books. Her fields of research include global change biology, science policy and science communication.
Suzanne H. Gage is a British psychologist and epidemiologist who is interested in the nature of associations between lifestyle behaviours and mental health. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool and has a popular science podcast and accompanying book, Say Why to Drugs, which explores substance use.
Jessica Alice Feinmann Wade is a British physicist in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London, specialising in Raman spectroscopy. Her research investigates polymer-based organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Her public engagement work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) advocates for women in physics as well as tackling systemic biases such as gender and racial bias on Wikipedia.
Sonia Antoranz Contera is a Spanish physicist. She serves as Professor of Biological Physics at the University of Oxford, a senior fellow at the Oxford Martin School, and a senior research fellow at Green Templeton College.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)