Previous Naked Scientists

Adel Fattah is a doctor and scientist. He completed his PhD in developmental biology at London University before coming to Cambridge to do medicine. He is now training as a plastic surgeon in Essex, so if you should fall ill in that neck of the woods, give the ambulance driver explicit instructions not to take you to any hospital in which he is operating !! No he's really good actually, we're just joking, honest ! Look at his photo - he practises on himself. Adel's other major forte, apart from always buying the beers when we go out, is sounding like Barry White, which could earn him more than his medical job !

Alison George, who has finally been captured on camera, began life as a biologist before working as a post-doc at the British Antarctic Survey. She is currently an editor for New Scientist. For the Naked Scientists she has researched and written up hot items related to environmental issues such as holes in the ozone layer and ice-cream! Alison has also proved herself an excellent presenter in the past, stepping in when certain team members have regrettably been prevented from getting to the show, owing to being unavoidably detained...in the pub.

Shwen Gwee is currently completing his PhD, on the neuroscience of addiction, and now lives in Boston, USA. He has helped to assemble the video archive of interview guests , and he has headed up the Naked Scientists Research Team, which helps to solve listeners questions live on-air. Shwen has also been a key member of Naked Science (Cafe-Scientifique Cambridge), which was set up by The Naked Scientists and launched in May 2002, with Shwen at the helm designing the posters and adverts for the events. In a nutshell, Shwen is Sony's biggest fan. He's got the shirt, watch, camera(s), credit cards, and if Sony made underpants, he'd wear them.

Catherine was one of the pioneers of our first forays into science broadcasting, back in 2000. She and Chris (Smith) were both PhD students in the same lab and, finding that their research wasn't keeping them sufficiently busy, they decided to write a grant application to the BBSRC, who funded Catherine, asking them to fund a radio show instead! Catherine left after the first series to pursue other interests including science writing and research into bacteriophage therapy. She now lives in Scotland (never mind) where she works in sales. We never knew that door to door could be so lucrative Catherine!

Anna loves science, loves radio and is an organisational freak, which makes being the Naked Scientists' producer a perfect job! In her previous life she studied zoology and spent some time as a research assistant in the Panamanian rainforest, which involved hugging trees and learning to drive a speedboat. But it wasn’t long before she swapped her wellies and insect repellent for a microphone and a ticket into the media jungle. She hasn’t been seen since… but you can hear her taking a call a mile off.

Sabina is a research scientist and a science communicator. She is a radio and web producer for the Naked Scientists which involves writing the weekly column and producing Question of the Week and the Enhanced Podcast. She's also designing and carrying out a project evaluation of the whole Naked Science experience. Now there's a thing. Sabina also researches volcanic hazards (how they impact on humans and the environment) and pursues opportunities for creative science communication.

Mandy Morton is a freelance radio presenter from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. At one time she hosted a Saturday morning programme, and once a month The Naked Scientists would join her on air to talk science for half an hour. Once the Naked Scientists became a firm presence at BBC Cambridgeshire Mandy became the ideal choice to step in and host the show when Chris was away. She how presents an arts programme on a weekday evening and is writing a book. We're very grateful to her for all her help and support along the way.

Richard Smith is a Geologist from Royal Holloway, London, and a technophile who is hopelessly addicted to expensive electrical gadgetry. However, this latter quality made him the ideal candidate to edit the audio and video material from the show, for our guest interviews and Archived science radio shows. His greatest weakness is his left wrist, which he broke whilst off snowboarding last Christmas ...tch... these novices eh! His chief disability is now lifting his pint of Guinness.

Derek likes communicating in crazy ways - the crazier the better. And he also likes communicating in crazy places! So, he's worked on radio soap operas in Tanzania, busked public service announcements in Bangladesh, and of course taken part in numerous science experiments in kitchens across the East of England. While Dave is the brains of the kitchen science feature, Derek holds the mic and asks stupid questions - which is one of his strengths. In his spare time, he plays musical instruments (the crazier the better - he's a wizard on the Jew's Harp) and volunteers for community radio.

Sarah Urquhart is a doctor and currently works as a GP at a practice in Cambridge. Having toyed with the idea of a career in obstetrics and gynaecology, Sarah eventually decided that wallpapering the hall through the letterbox on a daily basis is just too challenging, so she's opted for General Practice instead. Sarah is our bad language surveillance officer and guardian of the swear box, duties bestowed upon her after she obliged us with a number of un-repeatable words on-air during the last series. She is also the official cake-baker in residence and graces each show with culinary marvels! This week it was banana cake, which was nice, but we really like the chocolate cake with brandy in...