Brian J Ford is a prolific research scientist who launched major science programms for the BBC, and his books pioneer new approaches in bringing science to the public. Over 100 editions of his books have been published all around the world, and he appears in TV programmes produced in studios ranging from Hollywood to Delhi, and from Germany to Japan. He was recently awarded a NESTA Fellowship in London, was presented with the inaugural Köhler medal in America for his work in microscopy, and in 2006 has been nominated for the prestigious Faraday Medal of the Royal Society in London.
He is a prominent scientist, broadcaster and lecturer, who was writing a weekly newspaper column on science before he was a student. He studied biology at Cardiff University, but became dissatisfied with the direction science was taking (the subject of his books Nonscience (1971) and Cult of the Expert (1982). He left to establish his own laboratory as an undergraduate to work on a new interdisciplinary approach to research. His revolutionary textbook Microbiology and Food, written in his twenties, addressed many of the issues he experienced as a student and soon established a new philosophy for food science. Brian was elected a Fellow of the University in 1986, is a member of the University Court, and in 2006 was elected President of the Association of Past Students.. He has made unique contributions to science and is a world authority on the microscope (the subject of many of his best-selling books). His scientific work has been published in many languages, but he is best known as a gifted expositor of science to the public.
He pioneered regular ‘science reports’ on television news, went on to introduce regular science to BBC radio with Start the Week and Newsbeat. He then launched his own programmes Science Now and Where Are You Taking Us? for the BBC, to appear as presenter on Food for Thought on Channel Four and then to host Computer Challenge, the first science-based television game-show. He has broadcast on The Food Programme, Woman’s Hour, Newsnight, Any Questions? and Sky Television News. In 1998 he joined Round Britain Quiz as a regular team member, partnering Lady Antonia Fraser, and features in his Science Hour phone-in sessions for LBC. Ford’s popular book, BSE: The Facts was written in a week and published within a month, a record in scientific publishing.
Ford’s work has revolutionised many major areas of science. His two satires, Cult of the Expert and Nonscience, helped demystify science and his BBC programmes (Science Now, for instance) broke new ground in the public accessibility of science. His major TV series Food for Thought was in the network top ten within its second week of transmission; it is still used as a teaching aid on video cassette. From this stemmed his popular work The Food Book and his recent book The Future of Food. Another pioneering title was Microbe Power - Tomorrow’s Revolution, for this painted a detailed portrait of the importance of microorganisms. Ford’s microscope books, from Revealing Lens and Optical Microscope Manual to the more recent Single Lens and Leeuwenhoek Legacy have revolutionised our understanding of the development of this important branch of science. He works in London, Cambridge, Brussels and Chicago. In England he was highly influential as a Director of Mensa, and a member of Council and a Director of the National Science Centre project, whilst in the USA he is on the boards of the McCrone Research Institute and the Van Leeuwenhoek Institute. At Cambridge University he serves on Council of the Society for the Application of Research and the Friends of the University Library.
His work is widely reported and discussed in journals including Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist, The Microscope and the British Medical Journal; his discoveries feature in many text-books and CD-ROMs. There are now over 100 editions of his books in print around the world, not only textbooks but also the popular 101 Questions about Science. His First Encyclopaedia of Science (for the pre-teens) sold over 70,000 copies. Brian J Ford contributes to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. He is a leading broadcaster (Medical News devoted a leader to his TV appearances and said he was a ‘rare master of the art’), and has appeared with Michael Parkinson, Danny Baker, Lulu, Carol Vorderman and many others. Ford has served on major scientific bodies in London and Cambridge.
Among many posts, he held a Fellowship at the Open University; he is now at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University and an honorary Member of Keynes College at the University of Kent. He is Visiting Professor at the Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester. He is Chairman of the Committee for the History of Biology Network and former Member of Council at the Institute of Biology, London; member of Council at the Society for the Application of Research at Cambridge University, Honorary Surveyor of Scientific Instruments and past Member of Council of the Linnean Society of London. He has travelled and lectured widely across Europe and the United States (where he has an annual lectureship), North and West Africa and the Middle East, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia including North Borneo, Thailand and Singapore; Australia including Tasmania, New Zealand, visiting Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. He is an enthusiastic student of island habitats, and has visited islands in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Aegean, Great Barrier Reef, Red Sea, extensively in the Caribbean, the Bahamas and the Cape Verde islands. He has played keyboards in a rock band, and can shoot, deep-sea dive, langlauf ski and fly a plane. An accomplished photographer (he has won many awards for his scientific photographs) he has also published poetry, cartoons and illustrations, and has appeared on television playing rhythm and blues. Recently he produced a microscope manual given to British schools as part of Science Year, and has published a book on GM crops that is receiving enthusiastic reviews.