Hannah Critchlow is one of the most gifted communicators I’ve ever heard. She can completely captivate and transform an audience of 1,500 people.
- Peter Florence
Dr Hannah Critchlow was named one of the “unofficial stars” of last year’s Hay Festival last year by no less than the New York Times. Peter Florence, the director of the Hay Festival, said: “Hannah Critchlow is one of the most gifted communicators I’ve ever heard. She can completely captivate and transform an audience of 1,500 people.” That’s quite an achievement for a young neuroscientist given that Hay is one of the world’s most prestigious literary festivals, attracting best-selling authors and politicians from around the world.
Yet Hannah admits to having been quite nervous about her talk on myths about the brain despite her years of experience doing public engagement work about neuroscience. “It was the most daunting talk I have ever given,” says Hannah, who will be taking part in the Cambridge Series at the Festival again this year.
Her science communications work was honed when she took part in one of the first Rising Stars programmes run by the University of Cambridge’s Public Engagement team in 2011. It offers training in public engagement and educational outreach for postgraduates, post-docs and early career academics at the University of Cambridge. As part of the programme Hannah had to produce a science communications project. She teamed up with the cosmologist Andrew Pontzen. Together they approached the online science radio show The Naked Scientists and produced some Naked Shorts on their research. The idea turned into a series which they also helped to produce.
Hannah then went on to secure a Wellcome Trust Society Award which allowed her to develop a series of talks to take round schools and public festivals, including the Science Festival and the Festival of Ideas, as well as to produce and present a series of neuroscience podcasts.
Read the full story
Full details of the Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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