Roger Highfield Explained

Roger Highfield
Birth Name:Roger Ronald Highfield
Birth Place:Griffithstown, Wales
Education:Christ's Hospital
Alma Mater:University of Oxford (MA, DPhil)
Thesis Title:Neutron scattering from chemical species
Thesis Url:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.345384
Thesis Year:1983
Doctoral Advisors:)-->
Awards:Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture (2012)
Partners:)-->
Children:one son, one daughter

Roger Ronald Highfield [1] (born 1958 in Griffithstown, Wales) is an author,[2] science journalist, broadcaster and Science Director at the Science Museum Group.[3] [4]

Education

Highfield was educated at Chase Side Primary School in Enfield and Christ's Hospital in Horsham. He studied Chemistry at Pembroke College, Oxford and was awarded a Master of Arts degree in Chemistry in 1980 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy for research on neutron scattering from chemical species.[3] [5]

During his research career, he was the first to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble while he was working at the Institut Laue Langevin.[6]

Career

Highfield served as the science editor of The Daily Telegraph for more than 20 years.[7] During that time he set up a long running science writing award for young people,[8] [9] a photography competition,[10] the 'scientists meet the media' party,[11] and organised mass experiments from 1994 with BBC's Tomorrow's World, called Live Lab and Megalab,[12] such as the 'Truth Test' with Richard Wiseman.[13]

He was the editor for the British magazine New Scientist from 2008 to 2011, where he redesigned the magazine and introduced new sections, notably Aperture and Instant Expert.[3] [4]

, Highfield became the director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group.[7]

In 2012, he published the results of a mass intelligence test[14] [15] [16] with Adrian Owen.

In 2016 he launched a critique of big data in biology with Ed Dougherty of Texas A&M and Peter Coveney.[17]

In 2019, Highfield became the science director at the Science Museum Group.[18] For the group, he wrote a series of long-form blogs about the science of Covid19[19] and in 2021 organised a special Covid19 issue of the Royal Society journal Interface Focus.[20]

Highfield is a visiting professor of Public Engagement at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology.[21] He is also a visiting professor of Public Engagement at the Department of Chemistry at UCL[22] and a member of the Medical Research Council.[23] In April 2023, he was made the honorary president of the Association of British Science Writers, taking over from the veteran BBC correspondent Pallab Ghosh.[24]

Popular science books

Highfield has written and co-authored nine popular science books, and edited two written by Craig Venter, including:

Awards and Honours

Highfield is a member of the Longitude Committee.[49]

Highfield wrote for a time for Newsweek.[50] and still makes occasional contributions to The Sunday Times,[51] the Evening Standard,[52] The Guardian[53] and Aeon magazine.[54]

He has been listed on the Evening Standard Progress 1000 in 2012[55] and 2016.[56]

In 2012, Highfield gave the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture, on Heroes of Science, at the Royal Society.[57]

In 2020, Highfield was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences[1]

Highfield was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to public engagement with science.

Personal life

Highfield met his wife, Julia Brookes, at the University of Oxford. They married in 1992 and have one son and one daughter.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 50 leading biomedical and health scientists elected to the prestigious Academy Fellowship | the Academy of Medical Sciences.
  2. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roger-Highfield/e/B000APV9G4 Roger Highfield's author page on Amazon
  3. News: Roger Highfield biography. https://web.archive.org/web/20100605061710/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/roger-highfield/. dead. 5 June 2010. The Daily Telegraph. 21 August 2013. London.
  4. News: Roger Highfield on science writing: 'Grab them with your first sentence'. 20 March 2013. The Guardian. 21 August 2013.
  5. DPhil . Roger Ronald. Highfield . Neutron scattering from chemical species . University of Oxford . 1983 .
  6. Highfield. R.R. Humes. R.P. Thomas. R.K. Cummins. P.G. Gregory. D.P. Mingins. J. Hayter. J.B. Schaerpf. O. Critical reflection of neutrons from a soap film. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. 97. 2. 1984. 367–373. 0021-9797. 10.1016/0021-9797(84)90307-2.
  7. Web site: The Royal Institution – Roger Highfield. 2011. The Royal Institution. 21 August 2013. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120307131646/http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=displayContent&id=00000004019. 7 March 2012.
  8. News: Young science writers pick-up awards . London . The Daily Telegraph . Roger . Highfield . David . Derbyshire . Robert . Uhlig . 7 September 2000.
  9. Web site: Why you should enter science writing competitions. 13 May 2011.
  10. News: The world as you've never seen it before . https://web.archive.org/web/20141025225300/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4766214/The-world-as-youve-never-seen-it-before.html . dead . 25 October 2014 . London . The Daily Telegraph . Roger . Highfield . 20 September 2001.
  11. Web site: Archived copy . 25 October 2014 . 25 December 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161225000723/http://www.rogerhighfield.com/media/first_telegraph_science_party.jpg . dead .
  12. Highfield. R.. ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Selling Science to the Public. Science. 289. 5476. 2000. 59. 0036-8075. 10.1126/science.289.5476.59. 17832963. 153667872.
  13. http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/Megalab.pdf
  14. Hampshire. Adam. Highfield. Roger R.. Parkin. Beth L.. Owen. Adrian M.. Fractionating Human Intelligence. Neuron. 76. 6. 2012. 1225–1237. 0896-6273. 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.022. 23259956. free.
  15. Hampshire. Adam. Parkin. Beth. Highfield. Roger. Owen. Adrian M.. Response to: "Higher-order g versus blended variable models of mental ability: Comment on Hampshire, Highfield, Parkin, and Owen (2012)". Personality and Individual Differences. 60. 2014. 8–12. 0191-8869. 10.1016/j.paid.2013.10.032.
  16. Hampshire. Adam. Parkin. Beth. Highfield. Roger. Owen. Adrian M.. Brief response to Ashton and colleagues regarding Fractionating Human Intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences. 60. 2014. 16–17. 0191-8869. 10.1016/j.paid.2013.11.013.
  17. Coveney . P. V. . Dougherty . E. R.. Highfield . R. R. . 10.1098/rsta.2016.0153. 27698035 . Big Data need Big Theory too . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences . 374. 2080 . 1373–1386 . 2016 . 5052735. 2016RSPTA.37460153C .
  18. Web site: Director and Group Executive.
  19. Web site: Coronavirus. 6 April 2023 .
  20. Web site: "COVID-19: science, history, culture and imagination". the Royal Society.
  21. Web site: University of Oxford Gazette.
  22. Web site: Centre for Computational Science website at UCL.
  23. Web site: UK Research and Innovation website. 14 April 2021.
  24. Web site: BBC's Pallab Ghosh to step down as ABSW Honorary President, Science Museum's Roger Highfield proposed as his successor.
  25. Web site: Virtual You review: The quest to build your digital twin .
  26. Web site: Book review: 'Virtual You' by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield . 27 March 2023 .
  27. Web site: Médecine : Demain, des jumeaux numériques pour notre santé ? . 25 March 2023 .
  28. Web site: Peter Coveney und Roger Highfield: "Virtual You" . 19 October 2023 .
  29. News: The books to read in 2023. Financial Times. 9 January 2023. Battle. Laura. Studemann. Frederick.
  30. Franklin . Sarah . From egg to animal: retracing an embryo's first steps . Nature . 19 March 2020 . 579 . 7799 . 339–340 . 10.1038/d41586-020-00762-6 . 2020Natur.579..339F .
  31. Rossant . Janet . When life meets research The Dance of Life Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and Roger Highfield Basic Books, 2020. 304 pp. . Science . 28 February 2020 . 367 . 6481 . 988 . 10.1126/science.aba2771 .
  32. Web site: THE DANCE OF LIFE | Kirkus Reviews .
  33. Web site: Mind Readers: The Scientists Setting Coma Victims Free. Mosaic. Roger Highfield-. Gizmodo. 22 April 2014 . 23 October 2019.
  34. Web site: Trapped between life and death. 8 June 2014. theweek.com. 23 October 2019.
  35. News: Communication with locked-in coma patients. 20 April 2014. The Independent. 23 October 2019. London.
  36. Web site: A Measure of Consciousness. Highfield. Roger. Pacific Standard. 14 June 2017 . 23 October 2019.
  37. Milinski . M. . Biology: A revolution in evolution . 10.1038/471294b . Nature . 471 . 7338 . 294–295 . 2011 . 2011Natur.471..294M . free .
  38. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f3e5965e-6e9a-11e0-a13b-00144feabdc0.html The invisible hand that binds us all
  39. News: Et cetera: Sep 23. Poole. Steven. 23 September 2006. The Guardian. 23 October 2019. 0261-3077.
  40. News: Books in Brief: Nonfiction . The New York Times . Christine . Kenneally . 5 January 2003.
  41. News: Observer review: The Science of Harry Potter by Roger Highfield. Singh. Simon. 1 December 2002. The Observer. 23 October 2019. 0029-7712.
  42. Coveney. Peter. Highfield. Roger. The arrow of time. Nature. 350. 6318. 1991. 456. 0028-0836. 10.1038/350456a0. 2014048. 1991Natur.350..456C. 43532317. free.
  43. More And Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon
  44. Book: More and Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon. 9789814350143. Anderson. Philip W.. 2011. World Scientific .
  45. News: A Mind Firmly Set on the Universe: Review of The Private Lives of Albert Einstein by Roger Highfield and Paul Carter, and Einstein: A Life in Science by Michael White and John Gribbin. The Daily Telegraph. "Weekend" section. September 4, 1993.
  46. Book: The Arrow of Time: A Voyage Through Science to Solve Time's Greatest Mystery . 978-0-449-90723-8 . Coveney . Peter . Highfield . Roger . 1992 . Fawcett Columbine .
  47. Coveney . Peter . Highfield . Roger . The arrow of time . Nature . April 1991 . 350 . 6318 . 456 . 10.1038/350456a0 . 1991Natur.350..456C .
  48. Web site: THE ARROW OF TIME | Kirkus Reviews .
  49. Web site: Longitude Prize. 23 October 2019.
  50. Web site: Roger Highfield . . 6 September 2014 . 25 May 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180525142200/http://www.newsweek.com/user/8127 . dead .
  51. News: Roger Highfield . The Times. 29 May 2023 . Highfield . Roger .
  52. Web site: Roger Highfield – London Evening Standard . 3 April 2018 . 24 March 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150324031605/http://www.standard.co.uk/biography/roger-highfield . dead .
  53. News: Roger Highfield. The Guardian. 18 January 2021 . Highfield . Roger .
  54. Web site: Roger Highfield. Aeon.
  55. Web site: London's 1000 most influential people 2012: Innovators, Scientists. 8 November 2012. London Evening Standard. 23 October 2019.
  56. Web site: The Progress 1000: Science. 7 September 2016. London Evening Standard. 23 October 2019.
  57. , 26 September 2012

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