Professor Andrew Briggs was elected in 2002 as the first holder of the Chair in Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford. His scientific research focuses on materials and techniques for quantum technologies, in which non-classical superposition and entanglement are harnessed for future applications such as quantum computers, using machine learning to run the experiments. His book with Roger Wagner, The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions, has been widely reviewed internationally, and formed the basis for a documentary film and a series for children. His subsequent book, It Keeps Me Seeking: The Invitation from Science, Philosophy, and Religion, written with Hans Halvorson and Andrew Steane, was chosen by Times Higher Education as Book of the Week for the first issue of 2019.
Reverend Professor Michael J. Reiss holds the Chair of Science Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, visiting professor at the University of York and the Royal Veterinary College, a priest in the Church of England, and president of the International Society for Science and Religion. The former Director of Education at the Royal Society, he is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and has written extensively about curricula, pedagogy, and assessment in science education and has directed a very large number of research, evaluation, and consultancy projects over the past twenty-five years funded by UK research councils, government departments, charities, and international agencies.