Plenary 1 Biographies
Professor Julia M Goodfellow CBE, FMedSci, FInstP became the 5th Vice Chancellor of the University of Kent in September 2007.
Julia has spent the last five years as Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. In this post, she was responsible for government funding for the biosciences in both universities and also in seven sponsored research institutes. She had been a member of the BBSRC council prior to this. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Biology. She was awarded a CBE in 2001 for services to biophysics.
Her career began with an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Bristol and completed a PhD in biophysics at the Open University Research Unit in Oxford. After postdoctoral studies at Stanford University in California, she moved to the Department of Crystallography at Birkbeck, University of London.
Her scientific studies pioneered the use of computational methods to study the structures of large biologically important molecules and used this to probe their function and dynamics. She became Professor of Biomolecular Sciences in 1995 and Head of the Department of Crystallography in 1996 at Birkbeck, University of London. She was appointed Vice-Master (deputy head) in 1998.
Dr James Wilsden became the Director of the Science Policy Centre at the Royal Society in September 2008, where he coordinates the Society's UK and International policy work. The SPC aims to strengthen the voice of science in the UK, European and international policy, under four themes, sustainability, diplomacy, innovation and governance.
From 2001 to 2008, James work at the think tank Demos, first as Head of Strategy then as Head of Science and Innovation. He was also Director of 'The Atlas of Ideas' project, which explored the changing geography of science and innovation in Asia, Africa, Latin American and the Middle East. He has reserach and published widely on science and innovation policy, sustainable development, emerging technologies and globalisation of research. From 1997 to 2001 he was Senior Policy Advisor at the sustainability charity Forum for the Future.
James has a first-class degree in philosophy and theology from the University of Oxford and a doctorate in technology policy from Middlesex University. he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Lancaster University, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, a Trustee of People and Planet and a member of the RCUK Advisory Panel on Public Engagement with Research. James is an experienced public speaker and has written for a vareity of publications, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, Times Higher Education, SEED, China Daily, OpenDemocracy and Green Futures.
