Maths Speakers

Rob Eastaway has been Director of Maths Inspiration since it began in 2004. He is an author whose books on everyday maths include the bestselling Why Do Buses Come In Threes? and The Hidden Maths of Sport. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 4 and 5 Live to talk about the maths of everyday life and has given maths talks across the world to audiences of all ages.

Matt Parker is known as the "stand-up mathematician" and is the only person to hold the prestigious title of London Mathematical Society Popular Lecturer while simultaneously having a sold-out comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Matt is always keen to mix his two passions of mathematics and stand-up as well as presenting TV and radio shows.

Colin Wright graduated in Pure Mathematics at Monash University, Melbourne, before going on to get a PhD at Cambridge. While there he learned how to fire-breathe, unicycle and juggle. These days he is director of a company that specialises in software for marine radar, but takes out time to give juggling talks all over the world.

David Acheson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and the author of 1089 and All That. He enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame when he appeared live on BBC's Tomorrow's World to demonstrate his explanation of the Indian Rope Trick. And he plays a mean guitar, too.

Helen Arney is a musical comedian and one third of the hit show Festival of the Spoken Nerd (with Matt Parker and Steve Mould). She recently toured the UK in Uncaged Monkeys alongside Prof Brian Cox, Simon Singh and Dr Ben Goldacre, which culminated in two sold-out dates at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Kate Bellingham has had an impressive career as a broadcaster for television and radio, including four years as a presenter on Tomorrow's World, and her own programmes on Radio 5 Live and Radio 4. Before that she graduated in Physics from Oxford. She is a former President of Young Engineers.

Dorothy Buck is breaking new ground in building the connections between maths and biology. She grew up in the USA and is now a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London. She's quite a guru on knots but what we want to know is - was she ever in the scouts?

Chris Budd is Professor of Applied Maths at the University of Bath, and a passionate populariser of mathematics. He is Chair of Maths at the Royal Institution and has given lectures to all ages across the country. He co-wrote Mathematics Galore!.

Hilary Costello graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2010 from the University of Alberta, Canada. She's now doing her PhD at Cambridge, looking at whether it might be feasible to cool the planet by putting particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. (How cool is that?!). In May 2011 she starred in Channel 4's documentary recreating the WW2 Dambusters raid.

Claire Ellis has been involved with Maths Inspiration from its first event back in 2004. Her degree was in Genetics, and for two years she was responsible for the Enigma Schools Project. She spent a year in Guatemala studying the mathematical systems of the Mayans (among other things).

Lucie Green is a space scientist based at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, in Surrey, where she studies the atmosphere of our nearest star, the Sun. You may well have seen her on TV, in one of her regular appearances on BBC Breakfast, or talking about astronomy with Professor Brian Cox, or even being interviewed on Ten O'Clock Live by Jimmy Carr.

Timandra Harkness performs science comedy as half of the Comedy Research Project, and co-wrote the formulae for the perfect joke and perfect sitcom. She's also half of comedy show Your Days are Numbered - the Maths of Death and hosts serious science and engineering events. Timandra is studying Maths with the Open University just for fun.

Richard Harris has worked as a composer and pianist since 1990. For several years he performed concerts all over the world with the acclaimed six-piano ensemble Piano Circus. He has written several books of piano arrangements for Faber, on everything from movie themes to pop songs and jazz. Being a teacher keeps him up to date with music fashions - recently he's lost count of the number of teenagers asking him for an arrangement of Skyfall.

Hugh Hunt grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and is now a lecturer at the Engineering Department at Cambridge University and is holder of the 'Best First Year Lecturer' award. Hugh leaped to fame in 2011 when he featured in a Channel 4 documentary re-creating the dambuster bombs from World War II.

Andrew Jeffrey spent 20 years as a teacher before starting a consultancy business. One of his lifelong passions is magic, and he also moonlights as a professional magician and mind-reader. He has written several books and he has performed his 'Magic of Maths' shows in more than a dozen countries all around the world - he is consequently fluent in almost two languages.

Mark Lewney has a PhD in guitar acoustics from Cardiff. He was the first winner of FameLab, a national competition to find the new faces of science communication. Mark has appeared on CBBC's Xchange! (as the 'Rock Doctor'), Channel 4 and Radio 4.

Richard Lissaman is Programme Leader of the Further Mathematics Support Programme. He is based at Warwick University, but he also worked part time advising a computer games company in London. With a PhD in Algebra, Richard continues to search for a mathematical formula to get Birmingham City back into the Premier League.

Steve Mould is a comedian and a science communicator, with a Masters Degree in Physics from Oxford. He is the science expert for Blue Peter and alongside Matt Parker and Helen Arney formed Festival of the Spoken Nerd, a hit show that has toured London, Edinburgh and New York.

Helen Pilcher is the only Lithuanian, Elvis-obsessed scientist/journalist/comedian in the world. Helen writes for the science magazine Nature. She is also one half of the Comedy Research Project, a stand-up comedy duo who spent long hours deriving the mathematical formula for the perfect joke - and so has no excuse not to be funny.

John Roberts is a director at Jacobs, one of the UK's largest engineering firms. He is one of the UK's leading theme park engineers, with projects including the London Eye, and the 'Big One' at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. He's been a consultant to several TV shows, including Top Gear. He is also a visiting professor of Engineering Design at Manchester University.

Paul Shepherd is a Lecturer in the Architecture and Civil Engineering Department at The University of Bath. He has worked on projects led by some of the world's leading architects including Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, and his design software has won several awards.

Simon Singh is one of the country's leading writers and broadcasters in the field of maths and science. After graduating in Physics, he joined the BBC where he directed the BAFTA winning documentary Fermat's Last Theorem. His bestselling books include The Code Book and Big Bang, and he recently co-authored Trick or Treatment, an investigation of alternative medicine. He has presented several TV and radio series, including The Science of Secrecy and Mind Games.

Ben Sparks is, amongst other things, a mathematician, a musician, and a twin. While at Oxford he sang in Out Of The Blue (who featured in Britain's Got Talent in 2011). He has busked around the world, but still gets shamefully excited about maths. He works part-time with the Further Maths Support Programme delivering maths enrichment lectures around the country.

David Spiegelhalter David Spiegelhalter goes by the grand title of the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge. He has always been fascinated by not knowing what is going to happen, which is partly what tempted him to appear on BBC1's Winter Wipeout in 2011 - where he surprised himself and others by getting through the qualifier and being 6th to be knocked off the Ski-Lift. A highly engaging BBC4 documentary about his work was broadcast in October 2012.