Inaugural Professorial Lecture series

Inaugural Professorial Lecture | Thursday 15 May 2025 | Jill Craigie Cinema, Roland Levinsky Building

Science rarely follows a straight path, and Professor Jarvis' experience with science is no exception. Although veterinary medicine was the initial goal, he soon found himself drawn to the excitement of discovery, the process of testing new ideas, and an insatiable desire to learn. This ultimately led him to explore the fields of virology and immunology. Join Michael Jarvis, Professor in Virology and Immunology, as he reflects on his experience from a welder in the English shires to a scientific experimentalist engaged in international collaborative vaccine research.

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Inaugural Professorial Lecture | Wednesday 11 June 2025 | Jill Craigie Cinema, Roland Levinsky Building

In her inaugural lecture, Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice will showcase a portfolio of research that leverages hybrid arts practices to explore, alongside children, their relationships with digital technologies – including video games, augmented and virtual reality, and AI. She will also highlight collaborative design processes that empower children to shape more hopeful futures for technology use, prioritising their perspectives over adult-driven agendas. These initiatives span interventions in child health, educational content, and entertainment, influencing the development of TV programming, apps, and toys.

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In this inaugural lecture, Professor Sarah Boulton took us on a voyage through landscapes shaped by geohazards – from the active faults and earthquakes of the Mediterranean to landslides in the Nepal Himalayas, and finally to tsunamis in Japan. On the way she not only wove stories and experiences from her career as an Earth Scientist into the journey, but also talked about the importance of diversity in science and her role as the co-founder of the award-winning outreach initiative, 'Girls into Geoscience'.

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Unpacking the skills, attitudes and understanding required for working with young children, Professor Verity Campbell Barr demonstrates the careful and considered ways in which educators skilfully draw upon a ‘basket’ of knowledges to provide rich early childhood education experiences that reflect the core concept of child-centredness.

In her research, Professor Helen Lloyd investigates how pervasive societal inequalities shape our health and social outcomes and our experiences of the world. She explores how institutions we inhabit, and the structural forces holding them together, create potent contexts that either challenge or reproduce inequality; and how our living conditions shape our sense of self and group identity, which in turn influence our motivations to seek help and our understanding(s) of health and illness.