Dr Adam Rutherford

Scientist, author, and broadcaster

Radio

One of BBC Radio 4’s most pre-eminent broadcasters, Adam’s recent six-part series Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics, recently won the audio Kavli AAAS Science Journalism Gold Award.

Adam also presents Radio 4’s flagship programme Start the Week and before that, was the host of Inside Science for eight years. His popular series The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry has been on air for a decade, and he was the presenter of the BBC’s flagship programme Inside Science for eight years. Adam is also a regular guest on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 music show, and the Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox and Robin Ince.

He has contributed to a host of other Radio 4 documentaries on subjects ranging from the inheritance of intelligence, MMR and autism, epigenetics, human evolution, astronomy and art, science and cinema, scientific fraud, and the evolution of sex.

Speaking

Adam is a geneticist at University College London (UCL), where he teaches evolution, genetics, the history of race science and eugenics, and science communication. Adam lectures extensively to audiences around the world, to academic and public audiences.

As the recipient of The Royal Society David Attenborough Award, he gave a lecture on The Politics of DNA.

He has given the Douglas Adam’s Memorial Lecture and the British Humanist Association’s Darwin Day Lecture, and spoken at the British Film Institute, the Hay Festival, and the Cheltenham Literary and Science Festivals, among many others.

Testimonial

“A huge thank you to Adam for his brilliantly engaging, provocative and informative talk last week. Adam had the audience completely captivated and attentive, no mean feat on his part after a long day for many attendees.” Client testimonial, Oct 2023 

Writing

Adam’s first children’s book, Where Are You Really From? was published in 2023. Prior to this, Adam has written seven books, most recently, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics in 2022. This follows his hugely successful How to Argue With A Racist which was a Sunday Times Best Seller. Other books include The Book of Humans: The Story of How We Became Us and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. Adam's first book, Creation was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. His next book, Higher, Faster, Stronger, is about the science of sport, and will be out when he finishes writing it.

Adam has written over a hundred articles for the Guardian, the Observer, The Telegraph, The Times, Wired, Focus, Times Educational Supplement and elsewhere. In his academic writing, he has written extensively on race, genetics, evolution and trust in science. 2016, he co-authored a study on the effects of video games on adolescents and violence.

Film work

TV credentials include The Beauty of Anatomy – a five-part series for BBC4 on the story of anatomical art. Horizon: Playing God (BBC2) on genetic engineering and synthetic biology (winner of Golden Dragon Awards, Shanghai, 2012); The Gene Code (BBC4), and The Cell (BBC4) - a three-part series charting the story of which won Best Documentary at the ABSW awards (2010) and was listed in the Daily Telegraph’s Top 10 Classic Science Programmes.

Adam has also worked as a scientific consultant on movies and TV shows, including the Oscar winning Ex Machina, Annihilation, Morbius, Life, World War Z, and Björk’s concert film Biophilia Live.

Background

Adam’s background is in genetics and evolution. He did a PhD at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond St Hospital, studying the role of genes in the development of the eye. He worked as an editor at the science journal Nature, during which time he launched and presented the award-winning Nature Podcast, and he has produced and directed many short films, including a music video tribute to the retiring Space Shuttle.

Photos by Stephan jakubowski