Event Details

Professor Hal Sosabowski describes the Big Bang, introduces us to the main actors who discovered the evidence for it and expands upon the evidence for it. He explains where the elements come from and takes the audience on a guided tour of the darker reaches of the periodic table.

Professor Hal holds a Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Brighton. He has a BSc and PhD in chemistry from the University of London and an MBA and MA (Marketing) from the University of Brighton plus a PG Dip in Law and LLM (Legum Magister, Master of Laws) also from the University of Brighton . He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, twice awarded the University of Brighton Teaching Excellence Award and thrice the University of Brighton Innovation Award. He was made the 2005 Higher Education Academy Teaching Fellow and awarded the 2008 Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chemistry.

He has appeared on TV for a variety of audiences, including children’s television where he co-presented the lab on ITV’s Ministry of Mayhem and BBC’s Bright Sparks, on which he had his own science slot. He has also appeared on mainstream science programmes such as BBC4’s The Volatile History of Chemistry, BBC2’s Rocket Science, National Geographic’s The Mystery Files, BBC’s History Cold Case and BBC’s Science Britannia. He has worked with Al-Jezeera with regard to the history of the periodic tables. He is currently on CiTV as Dr How in the reboot of How?

He is the man Brian Cox asks for chemistry advice (no, really).He is the resident Science Boffin (how I hate that expression) for several local radio stations, Radio 4’s Broadcasting House and ITV’s Meridian News. He is/was Science Consultant for: Big Brother (Endemol TV), Only Fools on Horses (Endemol TV) Adventure Island (RDF Television) and Science Changed My Life (Outline Productions). He also consults for the Science Museum Live! Brainiac Live show, and has an international reputation for running live science. He is particularly keen on facilitating the facilitators: see his series: Demonstrating Chemistry - Spectacular Experiments.

Interestingly, he was the first scientist ever to be allowed to do explosive demonstrations in the House of Commons in in 2011, and in contrast to Guy Fawkes Hal's explosives *did* work. He has an international reputation for performing high-end exhibition science and has toured Europe extensively.