Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili (; born 20 September 1962) is an Iraqi-British

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

and science populariser. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

radio and television, and a frequent commentator about science in other British media. In 2014 Al-Khalili was named as a RISE (Recognising Inspirational Scientists and Engineers) leader by the UK's

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British UK Research Councils, Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical scienc ...

(EPSRC). He was President of

Humanists UK Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent Irreligion in the United Kingdom, non-religious people in the UK throug ...

between January 2013 and January 2016.

Early life and education

Al-Khalili was born in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

in 1962. His father was an Iraqi Air Force engineer, and his English mother was a librarian. Al-Khalili settled permanently in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 1979. After completing (and retaking) his

A-levels The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational ...

over three years until 1982, he studied

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

and graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in 1986. He stayed on at Surrey to pursue a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in nuclear reaction theory, which he obtained in 1989, rather than accepting a job offer from the National Physical Laboratory.

Career and research

In 1989, Al-Khalili was awarded a Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) postdoctoral fellowship at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, after which he returned to Surrey in 1991, first as a research assistant, then as a lecturer. In 1994, Al-Khalili was awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Advanced Research Fellowship for five years, during which time he established himself as a leading expert on mathematical models of exotic atomic nuclei. He has published widely in his field. Al-Khalili is a professor of physics at the

, where he also holds a chair in the Public Engagement in Science. He has been a trustee (2006–2012) and vice president (2008–2011) of the British Science Association. He also held an EPSRC Senior Media Fellowship. 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 The British Science Association (BSA) is a Charitable organization, charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...

. He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Physics since 2000, when he also received the Institute's Public Awareness of Physics Award. He has lectured widely both in the UK and around the world, particularly for the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

. He is a member of the British Council Science and Engineering Advisory Group, a member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Equality and Diversity Panel, an external examiner for the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

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. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cheltenham Science Festival. In 2007, he was a judge on the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction and has been a celebrity judge at the National Science & Engineering Competition Finals at The Big Bang Fair. He was appointed Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. In 2012, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on ''Alan Turing: Legacy of a Code Breaker'' at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. In 2013 he was awarded an Honorary Degree (DSc) from the University of London. Al-Khalili was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018 and elected an Honorary Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

in 2023. He was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to science and public engagement in STEM.

Broadcasting

As a broadcaster, Al-Khalili is frequently on television and radio and also writes articles for the British press. In 2004, he co-presented the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

documentary ''The Riddle of Einstein's Brain'', produced by Icon Films. His big break as a presenter came in 2007 with ''Atom'', a three-part series on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

about the history of our understanding of the atom and atomic physics. This was followed by a special archive edition of ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...

'', "The Big Bang". In early 2009, 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. He has contributed to programmes ranging from '' Tomorrow's World'', BBC Four's ''Mind Games'', '' The South Bank Show'' to

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

's '' Bang Goes the Theory''. In 2010 he presented the BBC documentary on the

history of chemistry The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Examples include the discovery of fire, ex ...

, '' Chemistry: A Volatile History''. In October 2011, he began a programme on famous contemporary scientists on Radio Four, called '' The Life Scientific''. The first of this series featured his interview with Paul Nurse. He has since interviewed a series of notable scientists, including

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

, Alice Roberts, James Lovelock,

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...

, Martin Rees,

Jocelyn Bell Burnell Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (; Bell; born 15 July 1943) is a Northern Irish physicist who, as a doctoral student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not ...

, Mark Walport and

Tim Hunt Sir Richard Timothy Hunt (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molecu ...

, and he has himself been interviewed on the show by

Adam Rutherford Adam David Rutherford (born January 1975) is a British geneticist and science populariser. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal ''Nature'' for a decade, and is a frequent contributor to the newspaper ''The Guardian''. He former ...

. Al-Khalili hosts a regular "Jim meets..." interview series at the

, which is published on the university's

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel. Guests have included David Attenborough,

Robert Winston Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston (born 15 July 1940) is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour peer. Early life Robert Winston was born in London to Laurence Winston and Ruth Winston-Fox, ...

, Brian Cox and Rowan Williams,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

. In 2011, Al-Khalili hosted a three-part documentary series on BBC Four entitled '' Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity''. In 2012, Al-Khalili presented a

special on BBC 2, which examined the latest scientific developments in the quest to discover the

Higgs Boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

, with preliminary results from the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

experiment at CERN suggesting that the elusive particle does indeed exist. Al-Khalili has been one of the experts interviewed in the Philomena Cunk mockumentaries ''Cunk on Earth'' (2022) and ''Cunk on Life'' (2024).

Awards and honours

*2007 – Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for science communication *2008 – Appointed Officer of the

(OBE) in 2008 Birthday Honours *2013 – Warwick Prize for Writing, shortlist, ''Pathfinders'' *2014 – RISE leader award * 2013 – Honorary

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

*2016 – Inaugural winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication *2017 – Honorary Doctorate,

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

*2018 – Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) *2019 – Honorary

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

*2019 – Outstanding Achievement in Science & Technology at The Asian Awards. *2021 -

(CBE), "for Services to Science and Public Engagement in STEM." *2022 – Honorary

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

*2023 - Elected Honorary Fellow of the

Personal life

Al-Khalili lives in

Southsea Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea began as a f ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

, with his wife Julie. They have a son and daughter. Al-Khalili is an atheist and a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

, remarking, "as the son of a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

mother and a Shia

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

father, I have nevertheless ended up without a religious bone in my body". Al-Khalili became vice president of Humanists UK in 2016 after stepping down as its president. He is also a patron of Guildford-based educational, cultural and social community hub, The Guildford Institute.

Documentaries

* ''The Riddle of Einstein's Brain'' (2004) * ''Atom'' (2007) * ''Battle for the Beginning'' (2008) * '' Science and Islam'' (2009) * ''Genius of Britain: The Scientists Who Changed the World'' (2010) * ''The Secret Life of Chaos'' (2010) * '' Chemistry: A Volatile History'' (2010) * ''Everything and Nothing'' (2011) * '' Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity'' (2011) * ''Order and Disorder'' (2012) * ''Light and Dark'' (2013) * '' The Secrets of Quantum Physics'' (2014) * ''Britain's Nuclear Secrets: Inside Sellafield'' (2015) * '' The Beginning and End of the Universe'' (2016) * ''Britain's Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story'' (2017) * ''Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives'' (2017) * ''The Joy of AI'' (2018) * '' Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World'' (2019) * ''Secrets of the Solar System'' (2020) * ''Secrets of Size: Atoms to Supergalaxies'' (2022) * ''Quantum Physics: The Laws That Govern Our Universe'' (2022)

Publications

A list of Jim Al-Khalili's

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

ed research papers can be found on

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

and

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

. His published books include: * * ''Nucleus: A Trip into the Heart of Matter'' (2001) (co-author) * * ''The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance'' (2010) ** a.k.a. ''The House of Wisdom: The Flourishing of a Glorious Civilisation and the Golden Age of Arabic Science'' ** a.k.a. ''Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science''Retitled to avoid confusion with ''The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization'' by Jonathan Lyons. * ''Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science'' (2012) Review of ''Paradox''. * ''Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology'' (2014) (co-author) * * * * ;As editor * ''The Euroschool Lectures on Physics with Exotic Beams, Vol. I (Lecture Notes in Physics)'' (2004) * ''The Euroschool Lectures on Physics with Exotic Beams, Vol. II (Lecture Notes in Physics)'' (2006) * ''The Euroschool Lectures on Physics with Exotic Beams, Vol. III (Lecture Notes in Physics)'' (2008) ;As consultant editor * His essays, chapters and other contributions include: * ''The Collins Encyclopedia of the Universe'' (2001) * ''Scattering and Inverse Scattering in Pure and Applied Science'' (2001) * '' Quantum Aspects of Life'' (2008) * ''30-second Theories: The 50 Most Thought-provoking Theories in Science'' (2009) ;Fiction Jim Al-Khalili has written one science fiction novel: *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalili, Jim 1962 births Academics of the University of Surrey Academics of University College London Alumni of the University of Surrey British sceptics Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English atheists English humanists English people of Iraqi descent English physicists English television presenters Fellows of the Institute of Physics Fellows of the Royal Society Honorary Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Iraqi atheists Iraqi emigrants to the United Kingdom Iraqi people of English descent Iraqi physicists Living people People educated at Priory School, Portsmouth People from Southsea Presidents_of_Humanists_UK Quantum biology British quantum physicists British science communicators British theoretical physicists Writers from Baghdad