Hannah Critchlow
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Critchlow by the River Cam
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| Born | Hannah Marion Critchlow 1980 (age 43–44)
Leicester, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Education | Brunel University (BSc) University of Cambridge (PhD) |
| Children | 1 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge University of Oxford |
| Thesis | The Role of Dendritic Spine Plasticity in Schizophrenia (2008) |
| Website | neuroscience |
Hannah Marion Critchlow (born 1980) is a British scientist, writer and broadcaster. Her academic research has focused on cellular and molecular neuroscience.[1][2][3][4] In 2014 the Science Council named her as one of the ten leading "communicator scientists" in the UK.[5] In 2019 Nature listed her as one of Cambridge Universities "Rising Stars in Biological Sciences".[6] In 2022 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Brunel University for her work in neuroscience and communication.[7]
Critchlow decided on a career in neuroscience as a teenager after working as a nursing assistant at St Andrew's Hospital.[8][9][10] She studied Cell and Molecular Biology at Brunel University,[9][10] where she was awarded a First Class degree in 2003 along with three undergraduate University Prizes.[11] While studying at Brunel she had secured a work placement from GlaxoSmithKline, who with the Medical Research Council provided a CASE Award for her doctoral[12] studies at the University of Cambridge.[9][11]
Following completion of her PhD, Critchlow spent a year as a Kingsley Bye-Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge[11] and then a further year as a researcher at the Institute for the Future of the Mind,[11] funded by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.[13] In 2008 she returned to Cambridge, where she has been professionally based ever since, apart from a one-year secondment to the British Neuroscience Association in 2010–2011.[11][8]
In parallel with her research career, Critchlow began to establish herself as an effective science communicator and public face of science. She took part in a Rising Stars programme run by the University of Cambridge's Public Engagement team in 2011[14] and, together with the cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, produced a series of Naked Shorts on their research for the award-winning podcast The Naked Scientists.[11][14] A series of talks developed by Critchlow to take to schools and public festivals led to her giving a talk on "brain myths" at the Hay Literary Festival in 2015 that attracted national and international media interest.[15][16][17] This led in turn to her being commissioned by Penguin Books to write an introductory book on Consciousness[18] and to presenting Tomorrow's World Live for the BBC[19] and Family Brain Games.[20] In 2017 Critchlow was appointed as a Science Outreach Fellow by Magdalene College, Cambridge[11][8][18] She was a judge for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize.[21] In 2019 she was elected member of the prestigious European Dana Alliance of the Brain and named by Nature as one of Cambridge University's 'Rising Stars in Life Sciences' [6] in recognition for her achievements in science engagement. That same year her second book was published called The Science of Fate and made it onto the Sunday Times Bestseller list.[22]
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