Our Authors

Helen Carter is an immunologist at the Department of Pathology, Cambridge University, where she's trying to figure out how T cells work. She did her PhD at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre in Dundee and she is the head

of the Cambridge regional group of the British Society for Immunology, which tries to promote Immunology to scientists and non-scientists alike.

Alexandra Cheung has a degree in environmental science from the University of Nottingham and a masters in science communication from Imperial College. She is currently a freelance science journalist based in London.

Stuart Clark is a UK-based science journalist with a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Visiting Fellow of the University of Hertfordshire and a former editor of the United Kingdom's best-selling astronomy magazine, Astronomy Now. Currently he writes for the European Space Agency, New Scientist and BBC Focus and is also the author of several books, including Journey to the Stars and Universe in Focus: The Story of the Hubble Telescope. His latest title, The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began (upon which this article is based) is published by Princeton University Press. It is also the winner of the 2007 PSP (Professional and Scholarly Publishing) award for excellence in the category of cosmology and astronomy.

Harry Cliff took his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, specialising in physics. He is now studying for a PhD in the High Energy Physics group at the Cavendish Laboratory, carrying out research for the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN.

Paraminder Dhillon is studying biochemistry and genetics at Nottingham University.

Harriet Dickinson is currently studying for a biosciences PhD at the University of Cambridge having done her undergraduate degree at Oxford. She specialises in infectious diseases (especially the scary ones), and spends most of her time in the lab pipetting. When she does manage finally to escape the lab, she takes vents her scientific frustrations as the captain of the "cutthroats" – a Cambridge University ladies’ fencing team - and also by doing taekwondo.

Adel Fattah is a plastic surgeon based at Broomfield Hospital in Essex. He also has a background in developmental biology.

Christa Favot is currently completing her DDS at the University of Toronto. She has enjoyed several laboratory jobs on both American coasts where she had the chance to play with aspects of immunology and microbiology and measure the pH of diet Coke and ketchup chips (Canadian delicacy). When she is not obsessing over other people's spit, she herself drools over bicycles, and tries not to trip over her ballet shoes.

Robinson Fulweiler just completed her PhD at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island on the biogeochemistry of coastal waters. She is headed to Louisiana State University this autumn for her postdoc where she will continue to work on nutrient cycling and climate change.

John Gamel is Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, USA. He has published ninety scientific articles on topics that range from fingerprints to breast cancer. He has also published fifteen personal essays in a variety of literary journals, including Epoch, Boulevard, The Antioch Review, and The Gettysburg Review.