The hosts of the iSci Fly By Show come from very different generations but they share a love of science, technology, and engineering.
Neither believes that these pursuits will solve humanity’s fundamental problems but they are both convinced that they offer the most rewarding possibilities and the most engrossing mysteries for anyone who is fascinated by where we will be going in the next century or so.
Thoroughly hooked by Dan Dare’s space exploits in the 1950s’ Eagle comic, he is the archetypal “layman’s layman”.
During a career that can only be called eclectic he worked on projects like Concorde, Jaguar, and Tornado in the 70s, wrote business and economics books and articles in the 1980s and 90s, researched the space industry in Cornwall in the early 2000s, reported on technological change in various economic and industrial sectors in more recent years, and has never lost his enduring interest in science and technology in all their forms.
Most importantly, he has never been swayed from his belief that science, mathematics, technology, and engineering offer the most incredible futures for young people today and that, only through increased scientific and technological knowledge will we be able to address our existential environmental challenges.
There is just so much to be learned and built – so many exciting and fulfilling futures.
Space has always fascinated Olivia. From a very young age she would spend full nights on her driveway studying the stars and meteor showers, and this spurred her to read for a first-class master’s in physics, astrophysics, and astronomy at Lancaster University.
She specialised in gigantic stellar clusters – groups of millions of stars – studying their complex, and utterly mind-boggling, evolutionary paths. From this point, she knew that her appetite for knowledge could never be sated – and that the pursuit of astrophysics and science would be a core part of her life.
Science is ever evolving, ever growing, and it is vital – now more than ever – that everyone understands the broad directions that science and technology will take in the years to come. Olivia is also passionate about encouraging the younger generation to pursue such paths, to expand their scientific horizons and to come to understand just how much of our universe we still know nothing about.
There is so much to discover, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.
