Science Museum Advisory Board

The Science Museum Advisory Board advises the Museum Director on the strategic direction of the Museum, focusing on the cultural content of the Museum, priorities within the annual Business Plan and networks within the regional, cultural, academic and industry sectors.

Chair

Dr Gill Samuels CBE (Trustee)
Dr Gill Samuels is a physiologist and neuropharmacologist whose long career at Pfizer spanned both research and directorship. She contributed to the discovery and development of a number of medicines and was both Director of Cardiovascular Biology and Executive Director of Science Policy for Europe.

Since her retirement in 2005 she has continued her interest in education, international health policy and practice, women’s careers and public enfranchisement in science.

She has served on a number of research council boards (Medical Research Council and Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council) and Government initiatives (Human Genetics Commission, Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Biosciences Futures Forum, Medicines Foresight Panel, and SETFair, on women’s careers in science), and continues as a special advisor to the British Council. Until recently she chaired the Foundation Council of the Global Forum for Health Research, was a member of the board of the Non Governmental Organisation Drugs for Neglected Infectious Diseases (DNDI), and was an advisor to the World Health Organisation.

She was a founder member of the Rosemary Franklin Award of the Royal Society, the Athena Programme for the advancement of women in academia, and also Chair of the Cheltenham Science Festival, which is now arguably the best science festival in Europe. She is now a member of the main Board of Cheltenham Festivals.

She is a member of Council of University College, London, of its Finance Committee and of its business board. Formerly the Chairman, she is now the current Vice Chairman of the University Women’s Club in London.

She is now a trustee of the Science Museum.

Dr Samuels is the recipient of a number of national awards and honours, including the Queen’s Guide, a CBE (Commander of the British Empire), the First Woman of Science Award from the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), an Honorary DSc from Sheffield University and an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University. She is a Lifetime Fellow of the Royal Institution, and was, much to her amusement, no 6 on the 2011 Reuters’ list of Baby Boomer Achievers.

Trustee members

Professor Dame Athene Donald DBE FRS (Trustee)
Professor Dame Athene Donald, one of the leading scientists in the UK, is Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge University, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Gender Equality Champion (2010) and a fellow of Robinson College.

She has been widely recognised for her outstanding contributions to scientific research and to public engagement with science and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999, and in 2010, as a Fellow of the Academia Europaea.

Professor Donald has held a range of very senior responsibilities at Cambridge University, including chairing the Royal Society’s Education Committee. She also serves on national and international committees for research and professional matters.

Professor Ludmilla Jordanova FRHS FRSM (Trustee)
Professor Jordanova is Professor of Modern History at Kings College, London, and a pre-eminent historian of science and medicine active in research and teaching. She was President of the British Society for the History of Science from 1998-2000 and of the History of Science Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006. She was Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities from 2003-2005.

Professor Jordanova has curated exhibitions and served eight years as a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Members

Jane Atkinson, Senior Vice President, Sembcorp Utilities UK Asset Management
Jane Atkinson is Senior Vice President Sembcorp Utilities UK Asset Management. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations and maintenance of the Utilities business on Wilton International including the UK’s first Biomass Power Plant.

She began her career in 1990 with British Steel as a sponsored engineering student. On completion of her degree, Jane worked as a technical advisor to the Teesside Blast Furnace and soon after moved into Operations to manage the casthouse at the blast furnace. During her time at British Steel she has managed all of the major production units including an iron-making plant and a steel casting plant in Alabama, USA.

In 2007 Jane won the CBI First Woman Award in Manufacturing as she frequently as been at the forefront of women in engineering and industry. She has also been voted one of the 500 most influential people in the North East by The Journal every year since 2008. In 2011 she won the prestigious Stephenson’s Award for inspiring young people in science and engineering.

Jane is the Chairman of the University of Teesside Science and Technology Advisory Board.

She holds a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from Loughborough and Warwick Universities respectively. In 2011 Jane received an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Teesside University. Jane is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers as well as a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering. She is also a chartered and designated European Engineer.

Dr Sarah J Caddick
Sarah J Caddick PhD is Neuroscience Adviser to Lord Sainsbury of Turville and his organisation The Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Formerly the Executive Director of the Centre for Neuroscience Initiatives at Columbia University Medical Centre, she is a neuroscientist who has held leadership roles in private and public grant-making organisations (Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Kirsch Foundation, Wadsworth Foundation and the Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions (CAMS), which is part of the Milken Institute in Washington DC, where she has been responsible for all aspects of the strategic, programmatic, operational and grant-making activities.

She has advised a number of individuals and Foundations on their philanthropy in science and has sat on various funding committees in the US. She currently serves on the New York Academy of Sciences UK Charitable Foundation Board of Governors and the Governing Council of the Sainsbury-Wellcome Centre.

Before pursuing a career in medical and scientific grant-making and policy, Dr Caddick was engaged in biomedical research at Duke University Medical Centre and the Medical College of Virginia. She holds a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Southampton and a BSc in biology (Honors in neuroscience and genetics) from the University of Portsmouth.

Dr Marcus du Sautoy
Dr du Sautoy is Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. In 2001 he won the Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, which is awarded every two years to reward the best mathematical research by a mathematician under the age of forty.

He is also a broadcaster and presenter who writes for The Times and The Guardian and has appeared several times on BBC Radio 4 and television. He presented the BBC Four programme Mind Games and has also written numerous academic articles and books on mathematics, the most recent being The Num8er My5teries.

Dr du Sautoy was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.

Mr Malcolm Garrett
Malcolm Garrett is Creative Director at communication design consultancy 53K. Widely regarded alongside his contemporaries Peter Saville and Neville Brody as one of the most significant influences on the development of contemporary British graphic design, Garrett became one of the first leading British designers to focus on interaction design in the early 1990s. He has created innovative digital entertainment and communications with Peter Gabriel, the Spice Girls and MTV, and for large corporates like Barclays, Anderson Consulting and Guinness, as well as interactive cinema for the Science Museum and Immersion Studios, Toronto.

He is a Royal Designer (RDI), a Visiting Professor at Central St Martins, a Fellow of the Institute of Typographic Designers, a member of the Sir Misha Black Awards Committee, and a Director of SharpFutures, Manchester.

Dr Lucie Green
Dr Green is a Leverhulme Research Fellow based at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory where she conducts research into the Sun's magnetic fields. She also has an outstanding record of public engagement with science, for which she was awarded the Royal Society's Kohn Award in 2009. Her interest in the formal education sector led her to be one of the first Governors of the University College London Academy School which opened in September 2012 and she currently serves on the Royal Society's Education Committee.

Sir Tim Hunt
Sir Tim won The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001with Leland Hartwell and Sir Paul Nurse for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation. He was knighted in 2006 and also awarded the Royal Medal. Sir Tim studied Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

Ms Clare Matterson
Clare Matterson is Director of Medical Humanities and Engagement at the Wellcome Trust. She has responsibility for medical humanities, public engagement, education, media and communications, including the Wellcome Library and Wellcome Collection; the cutting edge public venue that explores medicine, life and art. Clare led the Wellcome Trust’s plans to establish the National Science Learning Centre – a major initiative with the UK Government to drive improvement in science education.

Clare joined the Trust in 1999 as Head of Policy, and produced the Trust’s first Strategic Plan. Prior to her time at Wellcome, Clare worked as a Management Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) advising universities, government departments and funding councils in the UK and overseas. She was a Senior Policy Adviser to the 1999 National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education and has also worked for the Higher Education Funding Council and the Higher Education Quality Council. She spent two years at the State University of New York, following receipt of a Fulbright Fellowship.

Clare’s career has spanned the private, public and voluntary sectors both in the UK and the US. She has a degree in Zoology from the University of Oxford.

Professor Michael Reiss
Michael Reiss holds the Chair of Science Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is also Pro-Director: Research and Development. His main research interests are in science education, sex education and bioethics. Michael is also Chief Executive of Science Learning Centre London, Vice-President of the British Science Association, a member of the Farm Animal Welfare Committee and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Professor Simon Schaffer
Simon Schaffer is Professor of History of Science at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of the British Academy. He has published widely in the areas of the history of experimental sciences and astronomy. He has also taken part in the design and planning of a number of exhibitions and museum projects in public science, including those at the Whipple Museum and Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, as well as the Centre for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe and elsewhere. Between 2007 and 2011 he was a Trustee of the Science Museum Group and from 2010 until 2015 he is working on a joint project with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on the history of longitude. Simon is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television on topics in the history of the sciences.