Roger Highfield

Roger Highfield was appointed Science Director of the Science Museum Group in 2019 after serving eight years as Director of External Affairs, when he was responsible for advocacy, press and marketing. Previously he was Editor of New Scientist magazine between 2008 and 2011 and the Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph between 1988 and 2008. Roger has published articles widely, including in Wired, Science, Observer, Sunday Times, Spectator and Economist. He has written eight books, including two bestsellers, and edited two by the genomics pioneer Craig Venter.

For his doctorate at the University of Oxford, Roger became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble, while working at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, Unilever and Southampton. Recently he was made a visiting professor of public engagement at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, and at the Department of Chemistry, UCL.

A member of the UKRI-Medical Research Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Roger won the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar prize in 2012 and over the decades has garnered many awards for journalism, notably a British Press Award.