Roger Highfield OBE, Visiting Professor in Public Engagement
Trained as a chemist, with an undergraduate and DPhil from the University of Oxford, Roger has had a distinguished career as an author, science journalist and broadcaster. He has written 8 popular science books, and thousands of articles for platforms such as The Daily Telegraph (where he was Science Editor for 22 years) and the New Scientist, which he edited for more than three years. He is currently the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of UKRI-Medical Research Council, and a visiting professor in the department of Chemistry at UCL.
Maria Leptin, Visiting Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Credit: EMBL Photolab
Maria studied mathematics and biology at the University of Bonn and the University of Heidelberg. She holds a PhD from the University of Heidelberg and conducted her PhD work at the Basel Institute for Immunology. After a postdoc at EMBL, she established her research group at the Max Plack Institute of Developmental Biology in Tübingen, and then became Professor at the University of Cologne, where she still leads a research group. She also runs a research group at EMBL, which focuses on the mechanics of shape determination during development. Maria was Director of EMBO from 2010-21 and is currently the President of the European Research Council (ERC). She is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, an elected member of EMBO, The Academia Europaea and the German National Academy of Sciences, as well as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.