Communicating Science and Evidence

Abstract 

Alex will talk about what she’s learned so far in her career from making BBC documentaries like Life in the Undergrowth and Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, to researching risk & evidence communication at Cambridge, to working as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords (via running an alternative publishing platform). How can researchers get involved in Parliament, or in the media? And what questions should we all be asking ourselves when we want to communicate our work?

Book a place

Complete the following to reserve a seat.

About Baroness Alexandra Freeman

Alexandra Lee Jessica Freeman, Baroness Freeman of Steventon is a British science communicator, life peer, and former television producer. She has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2024.

She was born in 1974 in Maryland, United States.  She studied biological sciences at the University of Oxford, before remaining at the university to undertake a PhD in zoology. Her 1998 doctoral thesis was titled 'Butterflies as Signal Receivers# and was supervised by Tim Guilford.  As a postgraduate, she was a member of Linacre College, Oxford and the Department of Zoology.

From 2000 to 2016, she worked for the BBC, within its BBC Science department and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit. As a producer or director, she was involved in Walking with Beasts, Life in the Undergrowth, Bang Goes the Theory, Climate Change by Numbers and Trust Me, I'm a Doctor.

In 2016, she joined the University of Cambridge as executive director of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication in the Faculty of Mathematics. 

In 2018, she proposed a new approach to scientific publishing in the form of the Octopus platform designed to publish 'smaller units of publication' and to promote the principles of open science. In 2021 Octopus received a grant from Research England to develop the platform into a global service. 

She was recommended for appointment as a non-party-political life peer by the House of Lords Appointments Commission in May 2024. She had applied for the role after hearing a member of the House of Lords speak on the radio about the need for more peers who could understand scientific evidence. She was created Baroness Freeman of Steventon, of Abingdon in the County of Oxfordshire, on 5 June 2024, and was introduced to the House of Lords on 29 July as a crossbencher. On 31 October 2024, she made her maiden speech in the Lords during a take-note debate on science and technology contributions to the UK economy.