Speaker Series: Professor Alice Roberts

At our inaugural Speaker Series event in the new Waterlow Hall, we welcomed Professor Alice Roberts to share stories of three species that became our ancestors’ allies.

Drawing on her book, Tamed, described by Brian Cox as: ‘A masterpiece of evocative scientific storytelling’,  Professor Roberts uncovered the deep history and origins of dogs, cattle and horses.  The academic, writer and author – a familiar face from Channel 4’s Time Team and BBC’s Coast and Digging for Britain – revealed how becoming part of our world changed these animals, as they became essential to the survival and success of our own species.

Professor Roberts took the audience on a whistle-stop tour through pre-neolithic history and archaeology, cutting-edge genetics and anthropology, sharing her enthusiasm for science as well as the humanities, and the value of interdisciplinary thinking.

The Professor of Public Engagement at the University of Birmingham shared numerous personal anecdotes: her times spent with hunter gatherer tribes in Tanzania; tales of shooting biscuits on glaciers; and revealing what keeps her awake at night – namely the potential impact of the decline in insect pollinators.

Enlightening, wide-ranging and endlessly fascinating, the talk spawned lots of incisive questions from the girls, who quizzed her on her views of veganism to the ethics of genome editing using technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9.

Deputy Head Girl, Alicia, one of our A Level Biology students, gave a vote of thanks for such an edifying evening. Having learned that all dogs are genetically 99.9% identical to European grey wolves, she joked that she would never look at our cavapoo school dog in quite the same way again.  Maple, in the audience, responded with a timely bark.

We were delighted to welcome a number of local schools to join our inaugural Speaker Series in the new Waterlow Hall. The Speaker Series has been running for three years, an opportunity for the school and local community to come together and hear from distinguished guests with a myriad of different perspectives on the world. From the BBC’s Mishal Husain to the former MI5 Director General, Stella Rimington, Olympics Gold Medallists, Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh, and the philosopher A C Grayling, the audience are exposed to diverse points of view that aim to open doors, hearts and minds.