Richard Battye is Professor of Cosmology and Associate Director (Science) at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in the University of Manchester. He did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and was a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College, before spending four years as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Since 2001 he has been at the University of Manchester. His work is focused on the boundary between fundamental physics and cosmological observables, in particular probing the seeds for galaxy formation, dark matter and dark energy. He was a member of the Planck collaboration which observed the anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Talk: Understanding the Big Bang and the Expanding Universe

Richard will also be appearing at the festival as part of the panel discussion The Science of Stephen Hawking