Hannah Critchlow

Critchlow decided on a career in neuroscience as a teenager after working as a nursing assistant at St Andrew's Hospital.^[8][9][10] She studied Cell and Molecular Biology at Brunel University,^[9][10] where she was awarded a First Class degree in 2003 along with three undergraduate University Prizes.^[11] While studying at Brunel she had secured a work placement from GlaxoSmithKline, who with the Medical Research Council provided a CASE Award for her doctoral^[12] studies at the University of Cambridge.^[9][11]

Following completion of her PhD, Critchlow spent a year as a Kingsley Bye-Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge^[11] and then a further year as a researcher at the Institute for the Future of the Mind,^[11] funded by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.^[13] In 2008 she returned to Cambridge, where she has been professionally based ever since, apart from a one-year secondment to the British Neuroscience Association in 2010–2011.^[11][8]

In parallel with her research career, Critchlow began to establish herself as an effective science communicator and public face of science. She took part in a Rising Stars programme run by the University of Cambridge's Public Engagement team in 2011^[14] and, together with the cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, produced a series of Naked Shorts on their research for the award-winning podcast The Naked Scientists.^[11][14] A series of talks developed by Critchlow to take to schools and public festivals led to her giving a talk on "brain myths" at the Hay Literary Festival in 2015 that attracted national and international media interest.^[15][16][17] This led in turn to her being commissioned by Penguin Books to write an introductory book on Consciousness^[18] and to presenting Tomorrow's World Live for the BBC^[19] and Family Brain Games.^[20] In 2017 Critchlow was appointed as a Science Outreach Fellow by Magdalene College, Cambridge^[11][8][18] She was a judge for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize.^[21] In 2019 she was elected member of the prestigious European Dana Alliance of the Brain and named by Nature as one of Cambridge University's 'Rising Stars in Life Sciences' ^[6] in recognition for her achievements in science engagement. That same year her second book was published called The Science of Fate and made it onto the Sunday Times Bestseller list.^[22] Her third book Joined up Thinking was published in 2022 to critical acclaim.