Speaker biographies
Mr James Lowther
James Lowther joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1977 as a copywriter, in which capacity he originated award winning campaigns for, amongst others, Castlemaine XXXX, Schweppes, British Rail, The Health Education Council and the COI. He became Joint Creative Director in 1987 and Deputy Chairman in 1989. In January 1995, James left to become the founding Joint Creative Director of M&C Saatchi – to date the most successful start-up agency in history which now has 18 offices in 13 countries worldwide. He was Chairman of the Agency from 2000 to 2005 and is now Founding Partner. In his career he has done several high profile public information campaigns for Health Education, Road Safety and the Home Office. James has recently created the Department of Health’s "Change for Life" campaign. He is married with four children and lives in Chelsea.
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Mr Paul Manners
Paul is director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, part of a major initiative to transform universities across the UK. The Beacons for Public Engagement project involves six HE-based beacons piloting innovative approaches to involving the public and community organisations in their work. The role of the NCCPE is to coordinate the activity of this group, to provide leadership to the whole HE sector, and to catalyse a culture change in UK higher education. Paul’s whole career has been education related. He trained as a secondary English teacher and after teaching for five years, joined the BBC at the Open University as a television producer. His credits include the long running BBC2 series, ‘Rough Science’. He then joined the BBC as an executive producer, responsible for a number of broadcast-led public engagement campaigns, including launching BBC Breathing Places, a campaign to inspire a million people to get actively involved with nature, and the BBC’s People’s War project, gathering tens of thousands personal reminiscences about WWII into an online archive. He is also chair of the National Trust’s advisory panel on learning, providing advice and guidance to the organisation’s senior management team, board of trustees, and professional staff.
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Dr Paul Martin
Paul Martin is Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham. He has two main areas of research interest. The first is the ethical, legal and social issues associated with emerging medical technologies and the second focuses on the commercialisation of biotechnology and expectation dynamics in medial innovation. His research has previously examined the development of gene therapy, genomics, pharmacogenetics, stem cells and regenerative medicine. Dr Martin has advised the European Parliament, the Conseil d'Analyse Economique (part of the French Prime Minister's Office), the UK Department of Trade and Industry and the Wellcome Trust. He is a member of the Editorial advisory Boards of Sociology of Health and Illness and New Genetics and Society. Dr Martin is currently a member of a BBSRC working group on synthetic biology, is a co-investigator in a recently established multidisciplinary chell network and has co-authored a major review of the social and ethical issues raised by synthetic biology which was published in June 2008.
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Ms Clare Matterson
Clare Matterson is Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust. She is a member of the Executive Board and has responsibility for Medical Humanities, all Wellcome Trust public engagement activities, the Wellcome Library and Wellcome Collection; a cutting edge public venue that explores medicine, life and art. Clare joined the Trust in 1999 as Head of Policy, and produced the Trust’s first Strategic Plan. Clare previously worked as a Management Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). At PwC, she worked on policy and implementation projects with universities, government departments and funding councils in the UK and overseas. During her time with PwC she was seconded as a Senior Policy Adviser to the Dearing Committee. Clare has also worked for the Higher Education Funding Council, the Higher Education Quality Council and the State University of New York, following receipt of a Fulbright Fellowship. Clare’s career has spanned working in the private, public and voluntary sectors - both in the UK and the US. Clare has a degree in Zoology from the University of Oxford.
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Mr Dominic McDonald
Dominic McDonald is Head of Public Engagement at Science Oxford Live. As such he is responsible for a hands on science gallery, and a programme of around 100 events each year aimed at a wide variety of audiences.
Dominic has a Science Communication MSc from the Open University, and prior to working at Science Oxford spent a couple of years with the RCUK Science in Society Unit. Since taking over Science Oxford’s public programme he has led a pretty thorough restructuring of what is done and how it’s done. This culminated in the total refurbishment of the venue, which was completed in March 09. As part of this restructure, the Oxfordshire Science Festival has been overhauled, taking it from being something which was run in-house by Science Oxford staff, to something which is a collaboration between all the major players in science and public engagement in the county.
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Dr Patrick Middleton
Patrick Middleton has a scientific background in plant genetics, having received a PhD from the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Throughout his time in higher education he took every opportunity to communicate science, both his and that of others, to a wider audience - helping out at science festivals, setting up school open days and talking to students. Patrick then moved to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council taking up the post of Public Engagement Officer before becoming Head of Public Engagement. He has been involved in encouraging scientists to engage with the public; setting up, creating and managing travelling exhibitions; public engagement events; and much else.
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Dr Katherine Miller
The Public Engagement team at EPSRC operates a programme which enables our researchers to participate in high quality public engagement activities. Part of my role involves managing the Partnerships for Public Engagement and Senior Media Fellowships schemes.
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Ms Sue Nelson
An award-winning science writer and broadcaster, Sue presents for Radio 4 and World Service, produces science podcasts for the Natural Environment Research Council, media trains scientists and is a regular speaker and chair of events. She has written for most national newspapers, as well as New Scientist and Nature, and is a former BBC science correspondent for national television news. Sue also writes drama, works for the European Space Agency and presents the annual x-change for the British Science Festival.
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James Lowther joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1977 as a copywriter, in which capacity he originated award winning campaigns for, amongst others, Castlemaine XXXX, Schweppes, British Rail, The Health Education Council and the COI. He became Joint Creative Director in 1987 and Deputy Chairman in 1989. In January 1995, James left to become the founding Joint Creative Director of M&C Saatchi – to date the most successful start-up agency in history which now has 18 offices in 13 countries worldwide. He was Chairman of the Agency from 2000 to 2005 and is now Founding Partner. In his career he has done several high profile public information campaigns for Health Education, Road Safety and the Home Office. James has recently created the Department of Health’s "Change for Life" campaign. He is married with four children and lives in Chelsea.
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Mr Paul Manners
Paul is director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, part of a major initiative to transform universities across the UK. The Beacons for Public Engagement project involves six HE-based beacons piloting innovative approaches to involving the public and community organisations in their work. The role of the NCCPE is to coordinate the activity of this group, to provide leadership to the whole HE sector, and to catalyse a culture change in UK higher education. Paul’s whole career has been education related. He trained as a secondary English teacher and after teaching for five years, joined the BBC at the Open University as a television producer. His credits include the long running BBC2 series, ‘Rough Science’. He then joined the BBC as an executive producer, responsible for a number of broadcast-led public engagement campaigns, including launching BBC Breathing Places, a campaign to inspire a million people to get actively involved with nature, and the BBC’s People’s War project, gathering tens of thousands personal reminiscences about WWII into an online archive. He is also chair of the National Trust’s advisory panel on learning, providing advice and guidance to the organisation’s senior management team, board of trustees, and professional staff.
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Dr Paul Martin
Paul Martin is Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham. He has two main areas of research interest. The first is the ethical, legal and social issues associated with emerging medical technologies and the second focuses on the commercialisation of biotechnology and expectation dynamics in medial innovation. His research has previously examined the development of gene therapy, genomics, pharmacogenetics, stem cells and regenerative medicine. Dr Martin has advised the European Parliament, the Conseil d'Analyse Economique (part of the French Prime Minister's Office), the UK Department of Trade and Industry and the Wellcome Trust. He is a member of the Editorial advisory Boards of Sociology of Health and Illness and New Genetics and Society. Dr Martin is currently a member of a BBSRC working group on synthetic biology, is a co-investigator in a recently established multidisciplinary chell network and has co-authored a major review of the social and ethical issues raised by synthetic biology which was published in June 2008.
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Ms Clare Matterson
Clare Matterson is Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust. She is a member of the Executive Board and has responsibility for Medical Humanities, all Wellcome Trust public engagement activities, the Wellcome Library and Wellcome Collection; a cutting edge public venue that explores medicine, life and art. Clare joined the Trust in 1999 as Head of Policy, and produced the Trust’s first Strategic Plan. Clare previously worked as a Management Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). At PwC, she worked on policy and implementation projects with universities, government departments and funding councils in the UK and overseas. During her time with PwC she was seconded as a Senior Policy Adviser to the Dearing Committee. Clare has also worked for the Higher Education Funding Council, the Higher Education Quality Council and the State University of New York, following receipt of a Fulbright Fellowship. Clare’s career has spanned working in the private, public and voluntary sectors - both in the UK and the US. Clare has a degree in Zoology from the University of Oxford.
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Mr Dominic McDonald
Dominic McDonald is Head of Public Engagement at Science Oxford Live. As such he is responsible for a hands on science gallery, and a programme of around 100 events each year aimed at a wide variety of audiences.
Dominic has a Science Communication MSc from the Open University, and prior to working at Science Oxford spent a couple of years with the RCUK Science in Society Unit. Since taking over Science Oxford’s public programme he has led a pretty thorough restructuring of what is done and how it’s done. This culminated in the total refurbishment of the venue, which was completed in March 09. As part of this restructure, the Oxfordshire Science Festival has been overhauled, taking it from being something which was run in-house by Science Oxford staff, to something which is a collaboration between all the major players in science and public engagement in the county.
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Dr Patrick Middleton
Patrick Middleton has a scientific background in plant genetics, having received a PhD from the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Throughout his time in higher education he took every opportunity to communicate science, both his and that of others, to a wider audience - helping out at science festivals, setting up school open days and talking to students. Patrick then moved to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council taking up the post of Public Engagement Officer before becoming Head of Public Engagement. He has been involved in encouraging scientists to engage with the public; setting up, creating and managing travelling exhibitions; public engagement events; and much else.
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Dr Katherine Miller
The Public Engagement team at EPSRC operates a programme which enables our researchers to participate in high quality public engagement activities. Part of my role involves managing the Partnerships for Public Engagement and Senior Media Fellowships schemes.
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Ms Sue Nelson
An award-winning science writer and broadcaster, Sue presents for Radio 4 and World Service, produces science podcasts for the Natural Environment Research Council, media trains scientists and is a regular speaker and chair of events. She has written for most national newspapers, as well as New Scientist and Nature, and is a former BBC science correspondent for national television news. Sue also writes drama, works for the European Space Agency and presents the annual x-change for the British Science Festival.
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