Lucy Hawking – Keynote Speaker

Author Lucy Hawking makes science accessible and entertaining to young readers through her ‘George’ book series of fantasy adventure novels based on real science. Written in collaboration with world-leading scientists including her father, the late Professor Stephen Hawking, the George series is published in over 40 languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. The final book of the series, ‘Unlocking the Universe’ a compilation of the science content from the whole series with some outstanding new essays added, was published in January 2020 by Penguin Random House Children’s Book and has been a #one best seller.

In 2015, Lucy created the Principia Space Diary with Curved House Kids for the UK Space agency. Principia Space Diary represents an innovative educational concept for primary students which allowed them to write their own book about astronaut Tim Peake’s mission to the ISS. Principia Space Diary was shortlisted in 2017 for the Arthur C Clarke award for education and outreach. With the same team, Lucy created the Mars Diary for primary age school children, published in 2018, also shortlisted for an Arthur C Clarke award. On July 20th, 2019, as part of the musical and theatrical troupe, The Lunatic Fringe, Lucy co-wrote and co-performed a critically acclaimed tribute to the Apollo Moon Landings at the Petworth Festival called ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’

As well as editing the text for her father’s final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Lucy wrote the Afterword for the posthumous book and recorded the audio version for Audible and Radio 4. Lucy has also made documentaries for BBC Radio 4 about the impact of technology on different aspects of human life. She is currently working on a series of podcasts for Audible about the future of the human race in space.

In 2008, Lucy won the Sappio Prize for Popularizing Science and in 2015, the UNSW medal for Outstanding Science Communication. In July 2015, Lucy was awarded an honorary doctorate in science by Queen Mary University London for her work in STEM education. In 2017, Lucy was a judge on the Royal Society’s Young Science Book of the year and is a regular judge for the Breakthrough Junior Challenge in Palo Alto, USA.

With the Guardian Media Group, Lucy made a virtual reality film, The Party, about an autistic teenage girl. The Party was nominated for an award in the ‘social impact’ category at the annual VR Awards 2018 and received huge critical acclaim for its realistic and authentic depiction of the life of a teenage girl with autism. Lucy is currently working with Atlantic Productions on a virtual reality experience based on black hole theory as well as a new book series for young readers.

In 2020, Lucy wrote and presented a highly well received series of podcasts for Audible, ‘Lucy in the Sky’, a look at the future of human space travel. In 2021, Lucy led a project at the Stephen Hawking Foundation in collaboration with the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and QMUL to produce free to download resources for teachers to support discussion around vaccines in the classroom. This project has been very well reviewed by users and is the result of intense collaboration and investigation not just of the scientific source material but also of the way in which a young audience relates to the subject of vaccines and how they access information about issues around science and society.

Lucy is the Chairperson of the Stephen Hawking Foundation.

In April 2022, Lucy Hawking will be releasing her new book; “Princess Olivia Investigates the Wrong Weather”, a climate change story book for 6-9 year olds.