Biography:

I graduated from Oxford University with a First Class degree in Biological Sciences and completed my PhD at University College London in 2007. I am currently a UK Space Agency research Fellow at the University of Leicester, working in the field of astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars. I also hold a STFC Science in Society Fellowship and am very active in delivering live events at schools and science festivals, working as a scientific consultant for the media, and have appeared in numerous TV documentaries and radio shows. I have won several awards for my science writing and outreach work and regularly freelance for newspapers and magazine articles, and have published three books. My latest, The Knowledge, is out now in hardback.