1. Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist and science populariser.
28 Facts About Jim Al-Khalili
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Jim Al-Khalili is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey.
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Jim Al-Khalili is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on BBC radio and television, and a frequent commentator about science in other British media.
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In 2014 Al-Khalili was named as a RISE leader by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
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Jim Al-Khalili was President of Humanists UK between January 2013 and January 2016.
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Jim Al-Khalili's father was an Iraqi Air Force engineer, and his English mother was a librarian.
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Jim Al-Khalili stayed on at Surrey to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy degree in nuclear reaction theory, which he obtained in 1989, rather than accepting a job offer from the National Physical Laboratory.
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In 1989, Jim Al-Khalili was awarded a Science and Engineering Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at University College London, after which he returned to Surrey in 1991, first as a research assistant, then as a lecturer.
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In 1994, Jim Al-Khalili was awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Advanced Research Fellowship for five years, during which time he established himself as a leading expert on mathematical models of exotic atomic nuclei.
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Jim Al-Khalili is a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, where he holds a chair in the Public Engagement in Science.
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Jim Al-Khalili has been a trustee and vice president of the British Science Association.
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Jim Al-Khalili was awarded the Royal Society of London Michael Faraday Prize for science communication for 2007 and elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Jim Al-Khalili has been a Fellow of the Institute of Physics since 2000, when he received the Institute's Public Awareness of Physics Award.
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Jim Al-Khalili has lectured widely both in the UK and around the world, particularly for the British Council.
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Jim Al-Khalili is a member of the British Council Science and Engineering Advisory Group, a member of the Royal Society Equality and Diversity Panel, an external examiner for the Open University Department of Physics and Astronomy, a member of the Editorial Board for the open access Journal PMC Physics A, and Associate Editor of Advanced Science Letters.
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Jim Al-Khalili is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cheltenham Science Festival.
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Jim Al-Khalili was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
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Jim Al-Khalili was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018 and elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2023.
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Jim Al-Khalili was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to science and public engagement in STEM.
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In early 2009, Jim Al-Khalili presented the BBC Four three-part series Science and Islam about the leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
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Jim Al-Khalili has contributed to programmes ranging from Tomorrow's World, BBC Four's Mind Games, The South Bank Show to BBC One's Bang Goes the Theory.
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Jim Al-Khalili has since interviewed a series of notable scientists, including Richard Dawkins, Alice Roberts, James Lovelock, Steven Pinker, Martin Rees, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Mark Walport and Tim Hunt, and he has himself been interviewed on the show by Adam Rutherford.
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In 2011, Jim Al-Khalili hosted a three-part documentary series on BBC Four entitled Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity.
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In 2012, Jim Al-Khalili presented a Horizon special on BBC 2, which examined the latest scientific developments in the quest to discover the Higgs Boson, with preliminary results from the Large Hadron Collider experiment at CERN suggesting that the elusive particle does indeed exist.
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Jim Al-Khalili has been one of the experts interviewed in the Philomena Cunk mockumentaries Cunk on Earth and Cunk on Life.
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Jim Al-Khalili is an atheist and a humanist, remarking, "as the son of a Protestant Christian mother and a Shia Muslim father, I have nevertheless ended up without a religious bone in my body".
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Jim Al-Khalili became vice president of Humanists UK in 2016 after stepping down as its president.
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Jim Al-Khalili is a patron of Guildford-based educational, cultural and social community hub, The Guildford Institute.