27_Scientific Committee

D’Oyly Carte Senior Lecturer in Arts and Health at the GKT School of Medical Education, King’s College London. Publications include the Routledge Companion to Performance and Medicine, 2024, Performance, Medicine and the Human, 2020 and Performance and the Medical Body, 2016. She also makes performances in collaboration with medical specialists and patients. Her work has featured in The Guardian, Times Higher Education Supplement and on This Week (BBC Radio 4).

Independent researcher, playwright, director and actor, Andrea has a Ph.D. in Physics. He works at the boundary between theatre and science, creating original works that have been performed all over Europe and beyond. He runs Arditodesìo a theatre company devoted to increasing scientific literacy and directs the Theatre of Wonder Festival in Trento (Italy). Andrea teaches science communication by means of theatre and storytelling at the Master in Communication of Science and Innovation and at the Physics Department of the University of Trento and at the Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of Bologna (Italy). Andrea is member of the board of directors of EUSEA – the European Science Engagement Association.

Science communicator and researcher at the Museu da Vida, science museum of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), in Brazil, where she works in the areas of public engagement with science; science, media and society; and science-theatre. Almeida teaches the Fiocruz’s Diploma Course in Communication and Popularization of Science and the the Master’s in Communication of Science, Technology and Health. She is co-author of the books Cordel e Ciência: A Ciência em Versos Populares, Ciência em Cena: Teatro no Museu da Vida and Science & Theatre: Communicating Science and Technology with Performing Arts.

Full professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Coimbra since 2000, now retired. Author of 70 books and numerous scientific, pedagogical and dissemination articles. He writes for national newspapers and magazines and he is guest of the Now TV channel. Former director of the General Library of the University of Coimbra, of the Romulo-Ciência Viva Centre and of the «Ciência Aberta» collection from book publisher Gradiva. He received several national awards. Recently, a new Library was created in Coimbra with his name.

Daniel Ibrahim Abdalla is Lecturer in the Department of English and Director of the Literature and Science Hub at the University of Liverpool. He works on literature from 1800-present and focuses on the ways that fiction and drama engage with science, race, and the environment. His is the author of two books: Endless Forms: Heredity in American Literature, 1890–1931 (2026) and, with Kirsten E Shepherd and Alexandra Paddock, Ten-Minute Book Club.

Assistant Professor at the NOVA School of Science and Technology (NOVA FCT) and member of the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT). Historian of the connections between science and international affairs (19th-20th cent.) and of science and imperialism in Portuguese colonial Africa (19th cent.). Works as a professional playwright and dramaturge since 2016, and has explored the use of historical knowledge of the sciences in theater performances about racism in phrenological discourse, medical discoveries and their ethical dilemmas, and Nazi science.

After more than thirty years of research in physics, she became a full-time actress, director and playwright. She is also the director of the theatre La Reine Blanche in Paris, where a large part of the shows is inspired by science. She recently published a series of plays on women scientists, which are produced at La Reine Blanche in Paris, Avignon, and also on tour.

Professor in Science Communication and Co-director of the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Her research interests explore narrative in science communication, spanning both arts and media practice and the actors involved in science communication. Emma is involved in developing the European Competence Centre for Science Communication, as part of the EU-funded COALESCE project. Through this project, her work focuses on understanding the competences needed by different types of science communicators and developing a portfolio of training to fill unmet needs in this area. She has published three books: Science & Theatre, communicating science and technology with performing arts; Creative Research Communication; and Introducing Science Communication.

Head of Communication at Instituto Superior Técnico. Lecturer in Science Communication and Social Media for Scientists, FCSH NOVA and University of Lisbon Doctoral School. Her main interests are the use of theatre improvisation techniques and storytelling in Science Communication. Coordinator of science radio show 90 Segundos de Ciência. Founder and former President of Portuguese Science Communicators Network SciComPT.

Marcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. He is author of nine books including his most recent book Blueprints: How mathematics shapes creativity (Fourth Estate, 2025). He is author of two plays including ‘I is a Strange Loop’ (Faber, 2021) which was performed at the Barbican in London in which he was also lead actor. His most recent play ‘The Axiom of Choice’ enjoyed a five week tour of India in autumn 2024. He is a trustee of Wayward Productions and a long term advisor to Complicité. He has presented numerous radio and TV series including a four part landmark TV series for the BBC titled ‘The Story of Maths’. He works extensively with a range of arts organisations bringing science alive for the public from The Royal Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.

Paul is an academic with research interests focussed on the intersections between theatre and science. He studied Physics and Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow before undertaking a PhD on the use of quantum mechanics as a framework for writing about live performance. He has held various academic posts, including Executive Dean and Deputy Provost, as well as Professor of Theatre and Performance, and has published variously on performance and science as well as writing a number of science related plays. He was convenor at the Performance and Science working group of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) and is co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Performance and Science (2025).

Steve Abbott, the Nathan Beman Professor of Mathematics at Middlebury College (Vermont, USA), has a long-term interest in real analysis, logic, and foundations. Bewitched by his experience as a consultant on a production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia over twenty years ago, Professor Abbott devoted himself to researching, watching, and eventually directing plays that engage mathematics. The results of this intellectual journey are recounted in The Proof Stage (Princeton University Press, 2023), which explores how playwrights from Samuel Beckett to Simon McBurney brought the power of abstract mathematics to the human stage

Director of the Botanic Garden of the University of Coimbra and research scientist in science communication and management at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and the Centre for Functional Ecology – Science for People & the Planet (CFE). She is a member of the Societies and Environmental Sustainability research group, and her research examines the societal impacts of science, technology, and science communication, with a particular focus on environmental literacy and public engagement in sustainability-related issues.