Our people

Bob White is Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University and a trustee and Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, originally founded in St Edmund's College, Cambridge in 2006. He studied Geology as an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and stayed to do research for a PhD in marine geophysics, which he completed in 1977. Since then he has been mostly in Cambridge, though with research interests around the world. He was elected a Fellow of St. Edmund’s College in 1988. In 1989 he was elected Professor of Geophysics, in 1994 a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 2016 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2018 was awarded a Gold Medal of The Royal Astronomical Society for his research.  His research interests include a wide variety of topics to do with how the earth works, with particular emphasis in recent years on the way in which molten rock is generated beneath the earth's major rift zones, and then stored in magma chambers in the crust before being erupted from volcanoes. Much of his current fieldwork is in Iceland.

He lectures and writes widely on science and Christian faith and believes that they are two ways of looking at the same world which give a richer and deeper view of it than either on their own. He is President of the charity Christians in Science, and Vice-President of the John Ray Initiative, a Christian environmental charity.

Sir Brian Heap has doctorates from the Universities of Nottingham and Cambridge in animal physiology, and has published on endocrine physiology, biotechnology, sustainable consumption and production, and science advice for policy makers. He was University Demonstrator at the University of Cambridge, staff member of the Institute of Animal Physiology, Babraham, Cambridge, Director of the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research (Cambridge and Edinburgh), and Director of Research at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Swindon. He was President of the Institute of Biology, UK Representative on the European Science Foundation, Strasbourg, UK Representative on the NATO Science Committee, member of the Scientific Advisory Panel for Emergency Responses (SAPER), Chief Scientist’s Office, Cabinet Office, and member of the Advisory Board of the Templeton Foundation. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1989, he became a member of Council, and Foreign Secretary and Vice-President from 1996 to 2001. In 1994 he was awarded CBE and in 2001 knighted for contributions to international science.

Sir Brian was President of the European Academies Science Advisory Council, Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham, and is Chief Scientific Advisor to the Malaysian Commonwealth Study Centre and the Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust, and is a Trustee of the Cambridge China Development Trust. He was Master of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and is Honorary Fellow at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge and formerly at Green Templeton College, Oxford. He was Editor of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, Chair of the Advisory Panel on Sustainable Consumption and Production at the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, and Specialist Advisor to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy.

With the UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Department of Health’s Expert Group on Cloning, the EU President’s Advisory Group on Biotechnology, and the UK-China Forum he has been engaged in issues of population growth, environment and biotechnology. He is Senior Adviser of the Smart Villages Initiative in Africa, Asia and Latin America, International Adviser, Global Food Security, University of Cambridge, and previously project co-leader of Biosciences for Farming in Africa. He was scientific consultant for Merck, Sharp and Dohme, Johnson and Johnson, and Ligand Pharmaceuticals in the USA, and Principal Scientific Adviser for ZyGEM Co Ltd, New Zealand.