5 pm Thursday 27 March – 5 pm Friday 28 March
Firth Hall, University of Sheffield
24 hours of lectures on life, the universe and everything, in honour and celebration of Dr Tim Richardson (1964-2013), and in support of local cancer charities
Programme – Thursday 27 March
17.00 Professor David Mowbray, Inspiration for Life – Introduction and Welcome
17.05 Professor Elena Rodriguez Falcon, Mechanical Engineering – Making a difference through learning
17.30 Professor Claire McGourlay, Chris Musgrave and Elizabeth Adams, Law – The Innocence Project – the case of Susan Mays
18.00 Dr Catherine Fletcher, History – Our men in Rome: spies, lies and secrets in the sixteenth century
18.30 Professor Rod Nicolson, Psychology – Positive dyslexia
19.00 Dr Susan Cartwright, Physics & Astronomy – Where did all the antimatter go?
19.30 Dr Tony Prescott, Psychology – Robot selves/human selves
20.00 Professor Brendan Stone, English – Narrative, illness and the importance of uncertainty: a personal account
20.30 Dr Jenny Freeman, University of Leeds – Life’s a risky business: why we all need to think like a statistician
21.00 Dr Amanda Crawley Jackson, French – Poems on walls
21.30 Professor Carsten van de Bruck, Mathematics & Statistics – Fundamental physics and the dimensionality of space
22.00 Dr Richard Steadman-Jones, English – What language is like
22.30 Dr Matt Mears, Physics & Astronomy – Spinny science: physics, feminism and pole dancing
23.00 Dr Aneurin Kennerley, Psychology – Is mind reading with MRI possible?
23.30 Professor Simon Keefe, Music – Mozart’s Requiem: facts, legends and ghosts
Programme – Friday 28 March
00.00 Dr Lisa Clark and the Sheffield Solar Team – How much electricity do solar panels really generate across the UK?
00.30 Dr Megan Freeth, Psychology – Reality is in the eye of the beholder: using eye-tracking to understand how we see the world
01.00 Professor Mike Siva-Jothy, Animal & Plant Sciences – The X lecture: the ‘love’ life of insects
01.30 Professor Nigel Clarke, Physics & Astronomy – Physics on my iPod
02.00 Dr Ed Daw, Physics & Astronomy – The music of a physicist
02.30 Dr Alan Dunbar, Chemical & Biological Engineering – Who were Langmuir & Blodgett, and what did they ever do for us?
03.00 Professor Tony Ryan, Faculty of Science – CatClo in China
03.30 Dr Allan Pacey, Medical School – Sperm you can bank on
04.00 Dr Ashley Cadby, Physics & Astronomy – One of our scientists is missing
04.30 Dr Nate Adams, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – Throwing spanners at nanobots
05.00 Dr James Mullaney, Physics & Astronomy – A brief history of the telescope: from Galileo to Gaia
05.30 Dr Sean Paling, Boulby Deep Underground Science Facility – Deep Underground Science at Boulby Mine: Subterranean studies – from Dark Matter to Dark Life
06.00 Dr Davide Costanzo, Physics & Astronomy – Big science at the Large Hadron Collider
06.30 Dr Rhoda Hawkins, Physics & Astronomy – AIMS (African Institute for Mathematical Sciences) & the Next Einstein Initiative
07.00 Dr Claire Howarth, Psychology – Controlling blood flow in the brain: understanding the BOLD signal
07.30 Dr Angela Wright, English – Women and the Gothic
08.00 Dr Russell Buchan, Law – Securing security in cyberspace: the role of international law
08.30 Professor Vanessa Toulmin – No fixed abode: celebrating twenty years of the National Fairground Archive (NFA) at the University of Sheffield Library
09.00 Dr Ingunn Holen, Medical School – Cancer research: are we getting anywhere?
09.30 Dr Chris Holland, Materials Engineering – The science behind spider silk
10.00 Professor David Mowbray, Physics & Astronomy and Dr Marieke Navin, Museum of Science & Industry – Sound and fury
11.00 Professor Patrick Fairclough, Mechanical Engineering – Introduction to polymers: surprise and amaze yourself
11.30 Dr Paul Mitchener, Mathematics & Statistics – Complexity, paradox and incompleteness
12.00 Dr Marek Szablewski, University of Durham – Surviving Warsaw
12.30 Dr Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Sociology – Understanding science as a culture
13.00 Professor Peter Bath, Information School – “Trust me, I’m a web-site”: problems and pitfalls of patients using health information from the Web
13.30 Marie Kinsey, Journalism – The art of getting things spectacularly wrong
14.00 Professor Paul White, Pro Vice Chancellor – Sheffield: city of immigration
14.30 Dr Kamal Birdi, Management School – Is artistic creativity the same as scientific creativity?
15.00 Dr Katie Edwards, Biblical Studies – Getting the skills to pay the bills with Arts and Humanities
15.30 Dr Simon Goodwin, Physics & Astronomy – Are we living in a computer simulation?
16.00 Dr Eran Elhaik, Animal & Plant Sciences – The holy grail of biogeographic analysis – from DNA to home village
16.30 Professor Richard Jones, Physics & Astronomy – The singularity may be slightly delayed …
17.00 Closing words from Catherine Annabel, Chair of Inspiration for Life