British academic and author
Brian J. Ford |
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| Born | 1939 (age 84–85)
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| Nationality | British |
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| Occupation(s) | Scientist, author and broadcaster |
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Brian J. Ford HonFLS HonFRMS (born 1939 in Corsham, Wiltshire[1]) is an independent research biologist, author, and lecturer, who publishes on scientific issues for the general public. He has also been a television personality for more than 40 years. Ford is an international authority on the microscope.[2] Throughout his career, Ford has been associated with many academic bodies. He was elected a Fellow of Cardiff University in 1986, was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester,[3] and has been awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society[4] and of the Linnean Society of London.[5] In America, he was awarded the inaugural Köhler Medal[6] and was recently recipient of the Ernst Abbe medal awarded by the New York Microscopical Society.[7] In 2004 he was awarded a personal fellowship from NESTA,[8] the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. During those three years he delivered 150 lectures in scores of countries, meeting 10,000 people in over 350 universities around the world.
Education
Ford attended the King's School, Peterborough, and then Cardiff University to study botany and zoology between 1959 and 1961, leaving before graduating to set up his own multi-disciplinary laboratory.[9]
Career and positions
Universities
Learned Societies
Other positions
He was the first British President of the European Union of Science Journalists' Associations,[citation needed] founding Chairman of the Science and Technology Authors Committee at the Society of Authors,[citation needed] and the president of the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR) of Cambridge University.[17] Ford has been a member of Mensa and was a director of British Mensa from 1993–1997, resigning a few months after being elected for a second term.[18][19] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1962.
2012 aquatic dinosaur hypothesis
In the April 2012 issue of Laboratory News, Ford put forward the idea that all large dinosaurs were aquatic, arguing that they were too large and heavy to be land animals.[20] Recent oxygen isotope analysis and taphonomic changes show clear evidence for a semi-aquatic lifestyle, however only for the Spinosaurus, so far no sauropod or ornithischian has been conclusively shown to be semi-aquatic,[21][22][23] although the small ankylosaurian Liaoningosaurus has been suggested to have had such a lifestyle.[24]
