Hull

Confirmed Speakers

• Luke Williams
  Born in darkest Hereford in 1976, Luke moved to the coast to study Information Systems Management at Bournemouth University and never left. Now working as a social media strategist for a leading brand communication agency in the south, RT Media, Luke is passionate about helping to create and foster a tech/web/creative community in his native Bournemouth through organising events like Bar Camp Bournemouth, Meetdraw and as a member of Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry's Digital Dorset Task Force. With a varied background from coding to knowledge management, through voice coaching and over a decade on local radio, a fascination with psychology and a Loch Ness expedition under his belt... Luke's never been one to follow a normal path. Luke will be talking about his personal goal setting journey and how it changed his life.
• Dr. Lewis Dartnell
  After graduating from The Queen's College, Oxford, in 2002 with a degree in Biological Sciences I moved to University College London for a four year combined MRes-PhD programme with the CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics & Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology) department. I was awarded my doctorate (thesis available here) in 2008, which has been reprinted by academic publishers as Martian Death Rays. I'm now working in the Centre for Planetary Sciences, researching in the field of astrobiology and the possibility of microbial life surviving in the surface dust of Mars in the face of the constant rain of radiation from space. I use a combination of computer models to simulate the penetration of space radiation and laboratory experiments on bacteria I've isolated from Antarcica and signs of life that might remain on Mars
• Dr. Tom Whyntie
  Tom is a Research Assistant at Imperial College London's High Energy Physics group. His current research is focussed on the upgrade of the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at the Large Hadron Collider. His PhD thesis was based on the as-yet fruitless search for dark matter -- the postulated "missing fifth" of the Universe -- at the same experiment. Tom was also the 2009 winner of the UK FameLab competition, where he talked about how finding nothing can be the best possible result. Fortunately for him, his PhD examiners agreed. Twitter: @twhyntie
• Andy Kirkpatrick
  The US magazine Climbing once described Andy as a climber with a “strange penchant for the long, the cold and the difficult”, with a reputation “for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond, sometimes with partners and sometimes alone.”More succinctly, Metro magazine claims that he “makes Ray Mears look like Paris Hilton”.
• Dave Windass
  Dave is a writer based in the city of Hull. His plays include Thinspiration, On A Shout and Sully. For Humber Mouth, Dave wrote and performed The Worst Seat in the House and, with Morgan Sproxton, co-wrote the comedy Gagging For It. With the support of Arts Council England, Dave is developing a play based on the life of British film mogul J Arthur Rank. Recent work also includes On Your Marks, the first cultural project in Hull to have been awarded the Inspire Mark by the London 2012 programme, and screenplays for the short films It's My Party and Stranger on the Shore. As a journalist, he was on the staff of the Hull Daily Mail for six years, worked as a theatre critic for The Stage and an arts correspondent for The Big Issue in the North. Dave delivers creative writing workshops for a wide range of organisations and also provides communications services to the private, public and voluntary sectors. In addition, he is a lecturer in digital media journalism at the Hull School of Art & Design, a director of networking group humberMUD and was the founder of theatre development showcase Scratch@Fruit, produced by Ensemble52. He is currently involved in the development of several new pieces of work for the stage.
• Lucia Walsh Hughes
  Lucia is a highly passionate classical soprano from East Yorkshire, recently graduating from the Leeds College of Music under the direction of Paul Nilon. Lucia has had a great interest in classical music since the tender age of eleven when she took up singing lessons with Diana Pocock M.A. In January 2008 Lucia performed a recital after winning the Hull Music Recital Clubs Ursula Follet Bursary, a prestigious award for which there is strong competition. In her second year at college Lucia was awarded The Rotary Club of Leeds Donald Webster Memorial Prize and scholarship. Lucia has performed the soprano solo in Handel's Messiah at Leeds Town Hall, The Venue, Leeds and Wakefield Cathedral.
• Felicity Aston
  Felicity's first 'expedition' involved being bribed up Helvellyn at the age of nine by her parents with a packet of Opal Fruits. The sense of achievement on reaching the top was slightly lost in the pouring rain but something about the experience must have stuck. Since then, Felicity has raced in the Canadian Arctic, led a team of women across the inland ice of Greenland, searched for meteorite craters in Quebec, skied along a frozen river in Siberia and spent three years living and working in the Antarctic. In October 2011, Felicity returned to the Antarctic but this time she went alone. Felicity is making a 1700km, 65-day journey to become the first woman in the world to cross Antarctica alone.
• Adam Roberts
  Adam Roberts is an academic, critic and Science Fiction novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated three times for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001 for his debut novel, Salt, in 2007 for Gradisil and in 2010 for Yellow Blue Tibia.
• Robin Harvie
  Everyone can run. Whether it is a jog around the park on a Sunday morning, or lining up with 40,000 other people at the start of the London Marathon, all it requires is a pair of trainers and the open road. But where does that road lead and why do we run at all? Robin Harvie ran his first marathon after a bet, but it wasn't until he had ventured 6,000 miles into the extreme world of ultra-distance running to the start line of the oldest and toughest footrace on earth, that he found an answer. As a hobby turned into a 120-mile-a-week obsession, so a way out of his daily routine evolved into a journey to discover who he was and what he was really made of.
• Dr James Gilbert
  In 25 years of engineering research at the University of Hull, James has looked at all sorts of problems: from how to get robots to make underwear to how to weigh fish while bouncing around in a small boat on the North Sea. Current preoccupations are restoring speech for people who have had their voice box removed and getting electrical power for nothing. In between, he tries to help students see the challenges and opportunities that engineering has to offer.
• Honey Langcaster-James
  A psychologist, business consultant and personal development coach, Honey transforms the personal and working lives of her clients by changing their beliefs about themselves and their abilities. Honey dramatically transformed her own life after a turbulent youth saw her get pregnant as a teenager, struggle to cope as a single parent on state benefits and very nearly go bankrupt. When her life was in danger of spiralling out of control she developed a system to change her self-limiting beliefs and, in the process, changed her life! Today, Honey has a 1st class honours degree in Cognitive Science, a Masters with Distinction in Organisational Psychology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Personal and Corporate Coaching. She has appeared on several national television programmes in the UK, most notably as a resident psychologist on two early series of Channel 4's Big Brother. Honey lectures in psychology at The University of Hull and runs a consultancy business. Her client list to date includes celebrities from around the world and major international companies like Tesco, Proctor & Gamble, Disney, and Virgin Media. She is passionate when it comes to her message, that you can achieve almost anything if you change what you believe.