Book talk: 'The Universal History of Us' - Tim Coulson in conversation with Charles Godfray

Past Event

Date
 15 October 2024, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Location
 Oxford Martin School & Online
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

Event Recording:

Do you ever find yourself wondering how we came to exist? Or how humans came to call planet Earth our home?

Join Tim Coulson – Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford as he talks to Charles Godfray - Director of the Oxford Martin School – they will take you back to the beginning of everything: the Big Bang. From there, they will lead you through a 13.8-billion-year epic – a tale that culminates in the most astonishing thing we have yet encountered: the staggering complexity of the human mind.

Covering physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, the emergence of life, evolution, consciousness and the rise of humankind, yet structured to be understood by anyone with a child’s curiosity, this talk will take the biggest story of all and tell it simply, grippingly and, above all, entertainingly. It is the history of you, me and everything – of how we all came to be. In short, it is the greatest story ever told.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception and book signing.

Tim coulson

Professor Tim Coulson
Professor of Zoology

Tim Coulson is an active researcher who plays a senior academic leadership role at the University of Oxford, where he is Professor of Zoology. He has been head of the Departments of Zoology and Biology, and has been an elected member of the university’s board of trustees. His other duties have included advising European and African governments on wildlife management, and global corporations such as Rio Tinto on human population into the future.

Tim edited the leading specialist ecological journal Ecology Letters, and has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. His work has taken him to study lions in Kenya with George Adamson (of Born Free fame) to visiting the Large Hadron collider at CERN where the Higgs boson was first detected. He appeared in several episodes of Richard E. Grant’s series Seven Deadly Sins and is always happy to communicate science to the public in an accessible way. He lives in Oxford with his wife and their dog Woofler.

Charles Godfray

Professor Sir Charles Godfray
Director, Oxford Martin School

Professor Charles Godfray was appointed Director of the Oxford Martin School on 1 February 2018.

He is a population biologist with broad interests in the environmental sciences and has published in fundamental and applied areas of ecology, evolution and epidemiology.

He is interested in how the global food system will need to change and adapt to the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, and in particular in the concept of sustainable intensification, and the relationship between food production, ecosystem services and biodiversity.

In 2017 he was knighted for services to scientific research and for scientific advice to government.