Brian David Johnson

The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment Computing and the Devices we Love, Fake Plastic Love, and Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.

Brian Greene

Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, and is recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory. His books are widely read: The Elegant Universewas a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has sold more than a million copies worldwide; The Fabric of the Cosmos spent half a year on The New York Timesbestseller list, and inspired The Washington Post to call him the “single best explainer of abstruse ideas in the world today.” His latest book, The Hidden Reality debuted at #4 on The New York Times bestseller list.

Greene has had many media appearances, from Charlie Rose to David Letterman, and his three-part NOVA special based on The Elegant Universewon an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award. A recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, Greene is co-director of Columbia’s Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics (ISCAP), and is leading a research program applying superstring theory to cosmological questions. With producer Tracy Day, he is the co-founder of the World Science Festival.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer

 CERN Director General

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer has been CERN Director General since January 2009. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg in 1977. Most of his scientific work has focused on the study of electron-positron reactions, the development of experimental techniques, as well as the construction and operation of large detector systems.

From 1984 to 1998, Prof. Heuer was a staff member at CERN, working for the OPAL experiment at the electron-positron storage ring LEP. During his 15 years at CERN Prof. Heuer occupied the highest managerial positions in the OPAL experiment and was the OPAL’s spokesperson in 1994-1998.

In 1998, Rolf-Dieter Heuer was appointed to a chair at the University of Hamburg. Then, he set up a working group to prepare experiments at an electron-positron Linear Collider that quickly became one of the leading groups in this field worldwide.

From 2004 to 2008, Prof. Heuer was research director for particle and astroparticle physics at the DESY laboratory, a member of the Helmholtz association. Prof. Heuer has been a member of many scientific committees and advisory bodies where he has acquired a great deal of expertise in reviewing projects as well as in assessing and promoting people.

Craig Venter

J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his numerous invaluable contributions to genomic research. He is Founder, Chairman, and President of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, research organization with approximately 300 scientists and staff dedicated to human, microbial, plant, synthetic and environmental genomic research, and the exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics.

Dr. Venter is also Founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics Inc., a privately held company dedicated to commercializing genomic-driven solutions to address global needs such as new sources of energy, new food and nutritional products, and next generation vaccines.

Dr. Venter began his formal education after a tour of duty as a Navy Corpsman in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After earning both a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego, he was appointed professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In 1984, he moved to the National Institutes of Health campus where he developed Expressed Sequence Tags or ESTs, a revolutionary new strategy for rapid gene discovery. In 1992 Dr. Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR, now part of JCVI), a not-for-profit research institute, where in 1995 he and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, using his new whole genome shotgun technique.

In 1998, Dr. Venter founded Celera Genomics to sequence the human genome using new tools and techniques he and his team developed. This research culminated with the February 2001 publication of the human genome in the journal, Science. He and his team at Celera also sequenced the fruit fly, mouse and rat genomes.

Dr. Venter and his team at JCVI continue to blaze new trails in genomics. They have sequenced and analyzed hundreds of genomes, and have published numerous important papers covering such areas as environmental genomics, the first complete diploid human genome, and the groundbreaking advance in creating the first self-replicating bacterial cell constructed entirely with synthetic DNA.

Dr. Venter is one of the most frequently cited scientists, and the author of more than 250 research articles. He is also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, public honors, and scientific awards, including the 2008 United States National Medal of Science, the 2002 Gairdner Foundation International Award and the 2001 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize. Dr. Venter is a member of numerous prestigious scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Society for Microbiology.

James Watson

The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize, Dr. Watson uncovered the basic scientific structures of life and how the organization of these proteins and nucleotides arrange themselves to create the unique identities of each living organism.

There is no one with more authority than Dr. Watson to comment on the current direction and debates surrounding genetic engineering, cloning and the future of ‘ life’ itself. Dr. Watson is a living legend whose greatest scientific discovery radically advanced and altered our understanding of human identity and whose legacy points to infinite possibilities and complicated questions.

From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Watson was appointed to head the National Institute of Health in the Human Genome Project, which involved thousands of scientists worldwide working to crack the human genetic code. The recent completion of the first survey of the entire human genome is a historic achievement in DNA research and provides scientists worldwide with the knowledge of an estimated 90% of genes on every chromosome. This discovery will expedite the understanding of how genetics can influence disease development, aid researchers looking for genes associated with particular diseases and lead to the discovery of new treatments.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, he has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science and, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962. Dr. Watson received an honorary knighthood December 31, 2001.

Lisa Randall

Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Harvard University

Lisa Randall is Professor of Physics at Harvard University. She is one of today’s most influential and highly cited theoretical physicists, and has received numerous awards and honors for her contributions.  Her work has been featured in Time magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, the Economist, Scientific American ,Discover, New Scientist, Science, Nature, and elsewhere. Randall is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Physical Society, and is the recipient of several honorary degrees.  When not solving the problems of the universe, she can be found rock climbing, skiing, or contributing to art-science connections.  Hypermusic Prologue, a small opera for which she wrote the libretto, premiered in the Pompidou Center in 2009, and Measure for Measure, an art exhibit she co-curated, opened in Los Angeles in 2010.

Lisa Randall is also the best-selling author of Warped Passages: Unravelling the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions and Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World.

Daniel Funeriu

Marie Curie Fellow and Adviser to the President of Romania

Daniel Funeriu was born and raised until age 17 in Romania. In 1988 he moved to Strasbourg, France, where he completed his high-school. He studied chemistry and obtained his PhD in supramolecular chemistry with Nobel laureate Jean Marie Lehn. During his last year of PhD he held a position at the prestigious College de France. From 1999 to 2002 he was an associate researcher at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. In 2002 he moved to the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, AIST, in Amagasaki, Japan, where he led a project on microarray technology. In 2006 he was awarded a Marie Curie Excellence Grant and became group leader at the Technical University Munchen. In 2009 he became Member of the European Parliament and in December 2009 minister of education, research, youth and sports in the Romanian Government. Since February 2012 he is advisor to the Romanian President on education and science issues. During his mandate as minister of education, research, youth and sports he ran deep reforms by passing a new and comprehensive national education law as well as a new research law. Also, during his mandate Romania became member of the CERN and European Space Agency.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was appointed European Commissioner with responsibility for research, innovation and science in February 2010. Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn has responsibility for the 7^th EU Research and Technological Framework Programme 2007–2013, which is the largest publicly funded research programme in the world, and recently made proposals for the next Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, which proposes a budget of €80 billion.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was a member of the European Court of Auditors for ten years, before which she was a member of Dáil Eireann. In 1979, she became the female cabinet Minister since the foundation of the Irish state and she served in several Ministerial posts, including the Gaeltacht, European Union affairs, Tourism, Transport and Telecommunications and Justice, when she was one of the negotiators of the Downing Street Declaration which was signed between the Irish and the British Govenments in December 1993.

Between 1997-2000, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn served as a non-executive director of Aer Lingus and the Ryan Hotel Group.    She was a T.V presenter,  a columnist in the Irish Times and a part time business consultant. She is also a former member of the Governing Authority of the National University of Ireland Galway.

Prior to entering politics in Ireland in 1975, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn qualified and worked as a primary school teacher.

Huanming Yang

Dr. Yang is the co-founder and President of BGI, one of the major genomics centers in the world. He and his collaborators have made a significant contribution to theInternational HGP, HapMap, Cancer Genomeand 1000 Genomes Projects, as well as to the Asian genomes, human pan-genome, ancient genomes, gut metagenomes, exomes and mythylome.  BGI has also contributed to sequencing genomes of rice,potato, maize, pigeonpea, soybean,cucumber, cabbage, chicken, silkworm, panda, ants, naked mole rat,cynomolgus and Chineserhesus macaque, CHO cell lines, SARS virus, lethal E.coliand many other microorganisms.

Dr. Yang obtained his Ph.D. from University of Copenhagen and postdoctoral trainings in France and USA. He has received many awards and honors, including Research Leader of the Year byScientific American in 2002 and Award in Biology by the Third World Academy of Sciences（TWAS）in 2006. He was elected as a foreign member of EMBO in 2006, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007, a fellow of TWAS in 2008, a foreign academician of Indian National Academy in 2009.

Charles F. Bolden, Jr

Charles F. Bolden, Jr. (major general, USMC Ret.)

NASA ADMINISTRATOR

Nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, retired Marine Corps Major General Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., began his duties as the twelfth Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 17, 2009. As Administrator, he leads the NASA team and manages its resources to advance the agency’s missions and goals.

Bolden’s 34-year career with the Marine Corps included 14 years as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Office. After joining the office in 1980, he travelled to orbit four times aboard the space shuttle between 1986 and 1994, commanding two of the missions. His flights included deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first joint U.S.-Russian shuttle mission, which featured a cosmonaut as a member of his crew. Prior to Bolden’s nomination for the NASA Administrator’s job, he was employed as the Chief Executive Officer of JACKandPANTHER LLC, a small business enterprise providing leadership, military and aerospace consulting, and motivational speaking.

Bolden’s NASA astronaut career included technical assignments as the Astronaut Office Safety Officer; Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations; Special Assistant to the Director of the Johnson Space Center; Chief of the Safety Division at Johnson (overseeing safety efforts for the return to flight after the 1986 Challenger accident); lead astronaut for vehicle test and checkout at the Kennedy Space Center; and Assistant Deputy Administrator at NASA Headquarters. After his final space shuttle flight in 1994, he left the agency to return to active duty.

During the first half of 1998, he served as Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Forward in support of Operation Desert Thunder in Kuwait. Bolden was promoted to his final rank of major general in July 1998. He retired from the Marine Corps in 2003. Bolden’s many military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in May 2006.

Alvaro Giménez Cañete

Alvaro Giménez graduated in physics (1978) and obtained a PhD in astrophysics (1981). After additional studies in Manchester, Basel and Copenhagen, he joined the Universidad Complutense de Madrid as a lecturer of stellar astrophysics until 1987 when he moved to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada.

Interested in the use of space for scientific research, he finally decided to join the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) in 1991, where he started a Laboratory for Space Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics (LAEFF) and took management responsibilities up to the level of Director General of INTA in 1995.

In 2001, Alvaro Giménez became the Head of the Space Science Department in ESA’s Science Directorate at ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. In 2007, the Director General requested his collaboration at ESA HQ in Paris as Science Policy Coordinator within his Cabinet. Alvaro Giménez maintained this role until now, despite being seconded to CSIC from 2008 to 2010 as Director of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB). He holds a Professorship at the Spanish Science Research Council (CSIC) with special leave of absence during his service at ESA.

His research has been focused in the understanding of the internal structure of the stars through the analysis of eclipsing binaries. In the area of space instrumentation, he has participated in a number of projects and was the Principal Investigator of the Optical Monitoring Camera instrument on the Integral mission. He has published several books and more than 350 specialised papers in refereed journals and proceedings of scientific meetings.

Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.  She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama.

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010.

Mary Robinson serves as Honorary President of Oxfam International and Chair of Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. Mary is the Chancellor of the University of Dublin since 1998.

Jules Hoffmann

2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

J. Hoffmann is Professor at the University of Strasbourg and has spent most of his career working with the French National Research Agency CNRS. The studies of the Hoffmann laboratory have been devoted over the last 30 years to unravelling the mechanisms of antimicrobial defenses in Diptera, namely in Drosophila. They have identified inducible antimicrobial peptides as primary immune response genes and have deciphered significant steps in the signaling cascade leading to gene reprogramming. They have further characterized the receptor proteins interacting with bacterial peptidoglycans and fungal -glucans. Of major interest was the discovery of the involvement of the Toll receptor (initially identified by Ch. Nüsslein-Volhard for its role in embryonic development) in the response to fungal and Gram-positive bacterial infection.

Altogether the studies of the Strasbourg laboratory have established Drosophila as an important model system for innate immunity and have contributed to a reevalution of this defense arm in the physiology of antimicrobial defense.

J. Hoffmann is the recipient of many international awards, including the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

Lars Steinmetz

Dr. Lars Steinmetz is one of the world’s leading scientists at the forefront of genetics and genomics research.He obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University and a PhD in 2002 from Stanford University.

At the age of 27, he started his own research group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany.

Since 2009, Dr. Steinmetz has served as co-chair of the Genome Biology Unit, which consists of over 100 scientists and 9 research teams; he also co-directs the Centre for High-Throughput Functional Genomics at EMBL.

In parallel, Dr. Steinmetz leads a focused research team at the Stanford Genome Technology Centre in the USA. Furthermore, he is a consultant, collaborator, and scientific advisor for several major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, advising in the areas of genetic diagnostics and personalized medicine.

Kári Stefánsson

Kári Stefánsson, M.D., Dr. Med. founded deCODE in August 1996. Dr. Stefánsson was previously a professor of Neurology, Neuropathology and Neuroscience at Harvard University and Director of Neuropathology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

From 1983 to 1993, he held faculty positions in Neurology, Neuropathology and Neurosciences at the University of Chicago. Dr. Stefánsson received his M.D. and Dr. Med. from the University of Iceland and is board-certified in neurology and neuropathology in the United States.

Dr. Stefansson is recognized as a leading figure in human genetics. He has shaped deCODE’s scientific approach and been actively engaged in leading its gene discovery work, serving as the senior author on most of the company’s publications.

Regina Palkovits

Regina Palkovits is Associate Professor for Nanostructured Catalysts at RWTH Aachen. She studied chemical engineering at the Technical University Dortmund and carried out her Ph.D. in the group of Prof. FerdiSchüth at the Max-Planck-InstitutfürKohlenforschung. After a research stay in the group of Prof. Bert Weckhuysen at UtrechtUniversity, she returned as a group leader to the Max-Planck-InstitutfürKohlenforschung before she became Professor at RWTH Aachen. In 2010, she was awarded the Robert Bosch-Juniorprofessorship for Utilization of Natural Renewable Resources, the Jochen-Block Award of the German Catalysis Society and the Innovation Award of North Rhine-Westphalia. Her current research focuses on the development of solid catalysts and processes for the efficient utilization of renewable and conventional resources.

Helga Nowotny

Helga Nowotny is Professor emerita of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and a founding member of the European Research Council. In 2007 she was elected ERC Vice President and in March 2010 succeeded FotisKafatos as President of the ERC. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, NY. and a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Vienna. Her current host institution is the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF). Helga Nowotny is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich and member of many other international Advisory Boards and selection committees. From 2005 – June 2011 she was Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Vienna. She is a Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and long standing member the Academia Europaea and recipient of several prizes and awards.

Helga Nowotny has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals. Her latest book publications include “Naked Genes, Reinventing the human in the molecular age”, (with Giuseppe Testa), MIT Press, 2011, “Insatiable Curiosity, Innovation in a Fragile Future”, MIT Press, 2008, and “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation (ed.)”, New York and London, 2006.

Christian Keysers

Department Head, Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (KNAW), Amsterdam, The Netherlands & Full Professor for the Social Brain, Department for Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen.

Christian Keysers (1973) is full professor and heads the Social Brain department at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam. German and French-born, after a PhD with David Perrett, he joined the team of Giacomo Rizzolatti where he contributed to the discovery of auditory mirror neurons. He then moved to the Netherlands where he showed that our brain is deeply empathic: whenever we see the actions, sensations and emotions of others, we activate our own actions, sensations and emotions as if we were in the skin of the people we observe. Christian is one of the founding fathers of ‘social neuroscience’, his work, published in the finest scientific journals, was cited over 3000 times. He won the Marie Curie Excellence Award and his acclaimed new book, The Empathic Brain, explains how empathy is at the very core of human nature.

Eric Karsenti

I obtained my PhD from Paris University in 1979 (Laboratory of S. Avrameas, Pasteur Institute). I then moved to the University of California, San Francisco (1981), where I worked on the cell cycle and mitosis ( M. Kirschner Lab). I joined EMBL as a group leader in 1985. Over the following 20 years, I have been one the leading scientists that contributed to the understanding of the cell cycle and mitotic spindle.

I also became head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics unit at EMBL. In this Unit, I have developed a new scientific culture, mixing group leaders trained in sophisticated imaging methods with biologists and physicists creating a new discipline that could be called Systemic Cell Biology.

Finally in 2008-2009, I organized the TARA OCEANS expedition that sailed around the world, finishing in March 2012. This has also been a very interesting scientific project in which I brought together Physical Oceanographers with Marine Biologists, Imaging specialists, Molecular Biologists, Bio-Informaticians and Modelers. The aim of this expedition is to better understand plankton organisms evolution and ecosystem.

Enrico Giusti

Enrico Giusti was Professor of Mathematics at the University of L’Aquila, and later at the Universities of Trento, Pisa and Florence. He retired from teaching in 2010.

He has been visiting professor/scholar at several institutions, among which the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University,  the Institute for Advanced Study, the Australian National University, the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Stockholm, the Lomonosov University in Moscow, the Nankai Institute of Mathematics, the Max-Planck-Institut in Bonn, the University of Tokyo.

His scientific interests include  partial differential equations, the calculus of variations, and differential geometry; later he focused on the history of mathematics and more recently on the popularization of mathematics.

In 1999 he founded “Il Giardino di Archimede”, the first museum ever devoted entirely to mathematics.
He is the editor since its founding (1981) of theBollettino  di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche, the Italian journal for the history of mathematics, and is a member of the Editorial Board of several scientific journals.

Marcus du Sautoy

Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College. In 2001 he won the prestigious Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society awarded every two years to reward the best mathematical research made by a mathematician under 40. In 2004 Esquire Magazine chose him as one of the 100 most influential people under 40 in Britain and in 2008 he was included in the prestigious directory Who’s Who. In 2009 he was awarded the Royal Society’s Faraday Prize, the UK’s premier award for excellence in communicating science. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List. He also received the Joint Policy for Mathematics Board Communications Award for 2010.

He is author of numerous academic articles and books on mathematics. He has been a visiting Professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Australian National University in Canberra.

Marcus du Sautoy is author of the best-selling popular mathematics book “The Music of the Primes” published by Fourth Estate in 2003 and translated into 10 languages. It has won two major prizes in Italy and Germany for the best popular science book of the year. His book “Finding Moonshine: a mathematician’s journey through symmetry” is also published by Fourth Estate and appeared in February 2008. It was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. His new book The Num8er My5teries was published by Fourth Estate in June 2010.

Marcus du Sautoy writes for the Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent and the Guardian and is frequently asked for comment on BBC radio and television.

Marcus du Sautoy plays the trumpet and football. Like Beckham he also plays in a prime number shirt, no 17, for Recreativo FC based in the Hackney Marshes. Born in 1965, he lives in London with his wife, three children and cat Freddie Ljungberg.

Peter Doherty

Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Medicine Prize for discovering the nature of the cellular immune defense.

Based at the University of Melbourne and also spending part of his year at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, he continues to be involved in research directed at understanding and preventing the severe consequences of influenza virus infection.

In addition, he goes in to bat for evidence-based reality, relating to areas as diverse as childhood vaccination, global hunger and anthropogenic climate change.  In an effort to communicate more broadly, he has published two “lay” books, and has two more in progress.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Now a Visiting Professor at Oxford University, I was previously Dean of Science at the University of Bath and for ten years Professor of Physics at The Open University. I had a year as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Princeton University, USA.

I read a Physics degree at Glasgow University, which was followed by a PhD at Cambridge in radio astronomy. During my time there I was involved in the discovery of pulsars – work which was recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to my supervisor! I subsequently worked in many branches of astrophysics.

In 2008 I become the first female President of the Institute of Physics. I am a fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Science. In demand as a speaker and broadcaster I see public engagement with science as important, and by being visible hope to encourage more women into science.

Ralph Mitchell

Ralph Mitchell is the Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Biology in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and has been a faculty member since 1966. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Science from Trinity College, Dublin and a doctorate in Microbiology from Cornell University in New York. The emphasis of his research is on the role of microorganisms in the deterioration of materials, with the focus on historic materials including archeological sites, paintings and historic manuscripts. Current research in his laboratory includes development of rapid methods for early detection of biodeterioration of historic materials and research into the microbial origin of discoloration of wall paintings in King Tutenkhamen’s tomb.

Pearse Lyons

Dr. T. Pearse Lyons is the founder and president of Alltech, a global animal health company that employs 2,650 people and conducts business in 128 countries in every region of the world. Founded in 1980, the company has grown to annual sales exceeding $500 million. Dr. Lyons is widely recognized as an entrepreneur and innovative industry leader. His scientific expertise, combined with an acute business sense, helped revolutionize the animal feed industry through the introduction of organic and other natural ingredients to feed.

Lyons holds several natural science degrees. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University College Dublin and obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Birmingham, England. He later worked as a biochemist for the Irish Distillers before founding Alltech in 1980. Since then, he has authored more than 20 books and numerous research papers in scientific journals. Lyons received the State Export Award for Kentucky and was acknowledged as leading one of the top 100 fastest-growing high-tech companies by World Trade Magazine. He was named Kentucky Entrepreneur of the Year in 1993. Lyons has been recognized for his contribution to science and industry and has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Plymouth, England; Heriot-Watt University, Scotland; and the University of Kentucky and Centre College, United States. University College Dublin awarded Lyons an honorary doctorate on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.

Renée Schroeder

Renée Schroeder was born in Brazil in 1953. In 1966 she moved for 1 year to Luxembourg and in 1967 to Austria. She studied biochemistry at the University of Vienna where she graduated in 1981. After postdocs at the University of Munich, the C.N.R.S. at Gif sur Yvette in France and the New York State Department of Health and after the births of her sons in 1983 and 1985, she took a group leader position at the Department of Microbiology and Genetics at the University of Vienna in 1989. Since 2007, she is a Professor for RNA-biochemistry and Head of the Departmant of Biochemistry at the University of Vienna.
Renée Schroeder’s research is focussed on functional and structural aspects of non-coding RNAs and on the role and mechanism of proteins with RNA chaperone activity. Recently, using genomic SELEX in combination with deep sequencing, her group is screening whole genomes in search of RNA aptamers that control transcription. Renée Schroeder is a recipient of the l’Oréal Unesco special award for women in science, of the Eduard Buchner and Wittgenstein awards and a EMBO member.

Bob Geldof

Sir Bob Geldof is recognized internationally as a political activist, musician and businessman.

Geldof formed the Dublin based band, The Boomtown Rats, one of the first successful international acts to emerge during the punk / new wave explosion of 1976 / 1977. After a series of international hits, including two UK number 1 singles, Geldof emerged as one of the most well-known pop personalities of his era. His music awards include Ivor Novellos, Grammies and BRITs, and for broadcasting they include a BAFTA, the Royal Society and Peabody awards.

Having witnessing the Michael Buerk BBC news on the dreadful famine that was plaguing Ethiopia in 1984 he reacted to the crisis by using his talent as a musician and bringing together his colleagues of the music industry to produced the number one selling hit single “Do They Know It’s Christmas” which became a musical phenomenon raising millions of pounds in direct aid. In 1985 he put together the Live Aid concert as a practical response to furthering the level of aid. In June 1986 Geldof was honored with a knighthood by H M Queen Elizabeth in recognition of his work for humanity.

By 1992 Bob had established himself as a highly astute businessman with his founding of the television production house Planet 24, which he later sold to Carlton TV. In 1999 Geldof founded Ten Alps Communications which is today one of Europe’s largest factual TV producers. Thirty-five productions are currently underway fuelled by the growth in broadcasters’ appetite for factual TV.

In July 2005 Geldof moved the world’s focus on Africa from charity to justice when he sought to overcome the problems caused by unrealistic debt burdens, unfair trade agreements and lack of aid. To focus the attention of the G8 leaders he organized the Live 8 concerts which took place in London, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome and Berlin. The results were spectacular with much of the debt being abolished, trade agreements changed and increases in aid committed.

Geldof has been recognized by the world for his on-going passionate commitment to humanity over the last 30 years. Geldof has been nominated no less than seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize and is the recipient on the Nobel Man of Peace Award. In 2005 he received the Freedom of the City of Dublin and was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 2005 European Hero’s. In 2006 Geldof received an honorary Doctorate (Doctor of Laws) from the National University of Ireland and was awarded the MTV “Free Your Mind Award” (Lisbon).

In 2007 Geldof was awarded a Doctorate of Civil Law by Newcastle University and received a Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In 2009 Sir Bob was awarded the “Der Steiger Award” for his long standing contribution to the music industry. Other awards include the GQ Outstanding Contribution Award 2009 and the prestigious International Trebbia Award for Creative Activities in March 2010. Later in 2010 Geldof was presented with an honorary degree from the University for Creative Arts in Canterbury for his contribution to Culture and Humanitarianism. Most recently Geldof received an honorary doctorate of philosophy from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for his “decades of charity work for humanitarian causes”