Videos from 2008 Lecture Series
To celebrate Science Week 2008 Discover Science & Engineering, in association with the Science Gallery, brought together a group of lecturers during Science Week. The lecture series was free to the general public and was aimed at improving the level of understanding of the role that science and engineering play in our everyday lives.
The lecture series was filmed and each lecture is now available to view through the links below. A trailer is presented on the right to give you an overview of the
entire lecture series.
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Professor Aubrey Manning
‘Learning to Live with our Planet’Professor Aubrey William George Manning OBE FRSE FIBiol is a distinguished zoologist and broadcaster and is recognised as one of Britain’s leading authorities on sustainability and ecology. He features frequently on BBC television and national radio and his main research and teaching interests are on animal behaviour, development and evolution. He has been involved with environmental issues since 1966 and with the Centre for Human Ecology since its inception at the University of Edinburgh in 1970. He was Professor of Natural History at the university from 1973–1997. Manning was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1973) and received an OBE in 1998.
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Gerry Johnston
‘The Science Behind Hollywood Special Effects’Gerry Johnston, affectionately known as ‘boom-boom Johnston’, is the director of Special Effects Ireland, based in Ardmore Studios in County Wicklow. He started working in film in the 1960s, and effects he has created have featured in hundreds of film and television productions including ‘Braveheart’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘Michael Collins’; he has special expertise in aerial and underwater rigging. Despite various offers to relocate to sunnier climes, Gerry is based in Ireland, and continues to work on major productions both here and around the world.
Dr. Cynthia Breazeal
‘The Personal Side Of Robots’Dr. Cynthia Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she founded and directs the Personal Robots Group at the Media Lab. She is a pioneer of Social Robotics and Human Robot Interaction (HRI). Her research programme focuses on developing personal robots that interact with humans in human-centric terms, work with humans as partners, and learn from people via tutelage. She has authored the book “Designing Sociable Robots” and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals and conferences in autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence, human robot interaction, and robot learning. She has been awarded an ONR Young Investigator Award, honoured as finalist in the National Design Awards in Communication, and recognized as a prominent young innovator by the National Academy of Engineering’s Gilbreth Lecture Award.
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Stephen Attenborough
‘The Future of Space Tourism’Stephen Attenborough is the Commercial Director for Virgin Galactic, a company wholly owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group which is on track to become the world’s first passenger carrying commercial spaceline. Stephen joined Virgin Galactic as the company’s first full time employee in 2004 to put in place the commercial foundations of the business. He now leads a team in London that covers sales, marketing, customer care, PR and communications. He also is responsible for workstreams that are developing and managing the astronaut experience as well as the liability, insurance and regulatory framework. Stephen joined Virgin Galactic having escaped a career in investment management in the City of London.
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Patrick Collison
‘How Two Teenagers Built and Sold a Company
For Millions’Patrick was born in Limerick in 1988, and currently spends most of his life programming (with Lisp and Smalltalk). When he was 15, Patrick wrote his own programming language, which won him the Irish Young Scientist of the Year award in 2005. Later in 2005, he came second in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists. He began college at MIT in 2006, but deferred to co-found Auctomatic with his brother John in early 2007. Ten months later, Auctomatic was acquired by Live Current Media for several million dollars. He now works in Vancouver as Director of Engineering with the new owners. In his spare time Patrick also runs marathons and is a keen long-distance cyclist.
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Professor Robert Winston
‘Public Engagement in Science – Does it matter?’Scientist, broadcaster, lecturer and best-selling author Professor Winston is one of the most respected figures in medicine for his research into human reproduction and pioneering advances, which are now widely used in fertility and IVF treatment. He is Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College, London, and has an international reputation for his ability to communicate complex science to a wide public audience. His TV series including ‘The Human Body’, ‘Secret Life of Twins’, ‘Superhuman’ and ‘Human Instinct’ have proved immensely popular and have received numerous awards. Professor Winston was created a Life Peer in 1995 and is Chancellor of Sheffield-Hallam University.
This lecture was the keynote address at the Atlantic Corridor Science Conference in Tullamore, Co Offaly, in October 2008. Atlantic Corridor works to develop cross-border and international links for business, education and development projects between Ireland, Northern Ireland and partner regions in North America.