Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE 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.
Her BBC 2 programme, “Do We Really Need the Moon?” showed just that. The programme earned Maggie the talkback Thames new talent award at the prestigious Women in Film and TV Awards in December 2011. She went on to present “Do We Really Need Satellites?” and was one of the main scientists on Channel 4’s Brave New World. She is currently presenting Sky at Night on BBC 4, Mini Stargazing for Cbeebies and is a panellist on Sky One’s successful science quiz show, ‘Ducks Quack Don’t Echo’. She also makes regular appearances on The One Show, Newsnight and Woman’s Hour and was a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Her latest book ‘The Sky at Night’s Book of the Moon’ (BBC Books) was published in September 2018.
Maggie studied at Imperial College where she obtained her degree in Physics and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Since then she has spent much of her career making novel, bespoke instrumentation ranging from hand held land mine detectors to an optical subsystem for the James Webb Space Telescope.
To further share her love of science Maggie conducts “Tours of the Universe” and other public engagement activities, showing school children and adults around the world the wonders of space.
Photo credit: Lovelight Photography