Here at the Daphne Jackson Trust, we are delighted to welcome Professor Jim Al-Khalili as our newest patron.
Jim is a multiple award-winning science communicator renowned for his public engagement around the world through writing and broadcasting. As a leading academic he’s made fundamental contributions to theoretical physics, particularly in nuclear reaction theory, quantum effects in biology, open quantum systems and the foundations of quantum mechanics.
He is a prominent author and broadcaster. He has written 15 books on popular science and the history of science and is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, such as the Bafta-nominated Chemistry: a volatile history. He hosts the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific.
Jim is a past president of the British Science Association and a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal and the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He received an OBE in 2007 and a CBE in 2021 for ‘services to science’.
I had the pleasure of being taught by Daphne Jackson as a University of Surrey undergrad over four decades ago. She was at the time Head of Physics and for us students seemed a formidable and awe-inspiring figure. Indeed, much of what I have made use of in my own teaching and research career when it comes to second order differential equations, I owe to Daphne’s wonderful lecture course.
“It was only later, when I began my PhD that I became aware of her many contributions to nuclear physics, medical physics and more widely in STEM education. I still have a well used copy of the monograph, Nuclear Sizes and Structures by Barrett and Jackson on my shelf.”
