Laurie Winkless is a physicist and science writer. A contributor to Forbes Magazine, she has worked with schools and universities, 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 ...

, and

The Naked Scientists ''The Naked Scientists'' is a one-hour audience-interactive science radio talk show broadcast live by the BBC in the East of England, nationally by BBC Radio 5 Live and internationally on ABC Radio National, Australia; it is also distributed g ...

. Winkless was born in

Dundalk, Ireland Dundalk ( ; ga, Dún Dealgan ), meaning "the fort of Dealgan", is the county town (the administrative centre) of County Louth, Ireland. The town is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is hal ...

, to engineer father Jackie and theatre director mother Rosemary. She received her BSc in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its 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 which r ...

with

Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

from Trinity College Dublin, worked at NASA's

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

, then returned to school for her MSc in

Space Science Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. After completing her studies she worked in the Materials Team at the National Physical Laboratory for seven years, with a focus on

thermoelectric The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa via a thermocouple. A thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Conversely, when ...

energy harvesting. She researched the use of

nanomaterials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...

in the space industry for the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

. While working on her PhD (which she did not complete) Winkless was physics news reporter for the BBC radio show and podcast ''The Naked Scientists.'' She then worked for the Nobel Foundation writing press releases and background material on Nobel laureates. In 2016 she moved to New Zealand with her husband Richard Jackett, a New Zealander. She works in science communications, media training and other science journalism work. Winkless' first book, ''Science and the City: The Mechanics Behind the Metropolis'' (2016), explains the science behind aspects of urban living, including skyscrapers and subways. The book came about after a publisher saw her

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account and approached Winkless for book ideas. Winkless refers to ''Science and the City'' as her "scientific love-letter to the great cities of the world." Her second book, ''Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces'' (2021) is "about materials and the forces at play on their surfaces".

References

External links

*
A sticky subject: the science of surfaces
Interview with Laurie Winkless on RNZ, 11 March 2022 Irish science writers Alumni of University College London Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Irish physicists 21st-century Irish women writers 21st-century Irish writers Irish women scientists People from Dundalk Irish scholars and academics Irish emigrants to New Zealand {{physicist-stub