I am a science writer, biographer, author and broadcaster. I live alternately in Oxford and West Wales, and write about science and scientists past and present.

I write mainly about the life sciences, then and now, and also have a particular interest in women in science. I’m fascinated by the lives of scientists and their interactions with the society in which they live.

I have recently made something of a speciality of writing scientific obituaries, especially for The Guardian, and I also commission and edit obituaries for Nature.

Between 2021 and 2023 I collected 100 oral histories of researchers, health workers and others associated with Oxford University who pivoted their work to focus on some aspect of the Covid 19 pandemic. The project, Collecting Covid, was a joint initiative of Oxford’s Bodleian Library and History of Science Museum. You can listen to the interviews here.

My biography of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was reissued in October 2019 in a slightly revised and updated edition, with a new title. There is also an audiobook for the first time, which I narrated myself.