Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist whose passion is presenting science to a general audience and demonstrating that you ‘don’t need a brain the size of a small planet’ to understand, participate in and enjoy science. And her recently broadcast programme, “Do We Really Need the Moon?” (BBC 2), which explores our intimate relationship with the moon, shows just that. The programme earned Maggie the talkback Thames new talent award at the prestigious Women in Film and TV Awards in December 2011.

Maggie had an unsettled upbringing, attending 13 different schools. She was diagnosed with dyslexia and shunted into a remedial class. As she says ‘a government statistician would have forecast a pretty bleak future for me’. She was saved by the Clangers and the idea of ‘space travel’ entered her young brain. A few years later she became hooked on Star Trek and her ambition took hold. Her father nurtured her hopes and dreams and that, coupled with hard work, enabled ‘a black girl with learning difficulties to travel from inner London to outer space!’.

She studied at Imperial College where she obtained her degree in Physics and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Since then she has spent her career making novel, bespoke instrumentation in both the industrial and academic environments. Managing multidisciplinary teams, these instruments have ranged from hand held land mine detectors to an optical subsystem for the James Webb Space Telescope. (The JWST is a joint ESA/NASA venture due to replace the Hubble Space Telescope around 2013).

TV and radio appearances include regular pieces on BBC Breakfast, Doctor Who Confidential, BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour: Technology Review for 2009, Big Bang Day, Girls in Physics), BBC 2: The Cosmos – A Beginner’s Guide (2007), Channel 5: Big, Bigger, Biggest Telescopes (2009) among many others. She was invited on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs (aired 7th March 2010) and won Red magazine’s “Red Hot Women” award in the pioneering category (Dec 2009). She was awarded an MBE in 2009.

Maggie also works at Astrium Ltd in Portsmouth where she leads the optical instrumentation group. Here she manages a range of projects making satellite sub-systems designed to monitor wind speeds and other variables in the Earth’s atmosphere. These systems are made under the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Living Planet Programme and are designed to improve our current knowledge of climate change. Maggie also has a Science in Society Fellowship from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) which enables her to engage the public with the science work that she loves. The Fellowship is held at the University College London (UCL).

To further share her love of science, Maggie has set up her own company Science Innovation Ltd (www.science–innovation.com). Through this Maggie conducts “Tours of the Universe” and other public engagement activities, showing school children and adults the wonders of space. She has given these talks to over 50,000 people across the globe (30,000 of these have been school children in the UK) and has just produced a film through Science Innovation called “Space in the UK”, which features Maggie on a “Big Brother” spaceship on a journey to Mars. This is being distributed for free through schools and science festivals across the country.

Recent Awards:

2010 – Awarded Honorary Fellowship from the British Science Association
2010 - Awarded a third STFC Fellowship in Science in Society, held at UCL
2010 – Invited on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs aired 7th March
2009 – Winner of Red Magazines “Red’s Hot Women” Award in the pioneering category
2009 – UK Power List, Listed as one of the UK top 100 most influential black people
2009 – Awarded Honorary PhD from Staffordshire University
2009 – Awarded MBE in 2009 New Years Honours list
2008 – Awarded a second STFC Fellowship in Science in Society, also held at UCL
2008 - Invited to give “Friday Night Discourse” at the Royal Institution
2008 – Invited member of Royal Society’s Diversity committee
2008 – Invited to become trustee for the “Young Engineers”
2008 – The BA Isambard Kingdom Brunel Award Lecture
2008 – The Royal Society Summer Exhibition Interactive Lecture
2008 – Winner Arthur C Clark Outreach Award for Promotion of Space
2007 – Invited member of Institute of Physics Diversity committee
2006 – UKRC Woman of Outstanding Achievement
2006 – Awarded inaugural STFC Fellowship in Science in Society, held at UCL

Maggie lives in Surrey with her husband and baby daughter.

For further information please contact Vicki McIvor on 020 7209 3777