Little Atoms 338 – Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Winchester Science Festival

Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell attended the University of Glasgow, where she received a bachelor’s degree (1965) in physics. She proceeded to the University of Cambridge, where she was awarded a doctorate (1969) in radio-astronomy. As a research assistant at Cambridge, she aided in constructing a large radio telescope and in 1967, discovered pulsars, which has been described as “the greatest astronomical discovery of the twentieth century”. Her supervisor Tony Hewish was later awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physics. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999 and Dame (DBE) in 2007, and became a member of the Royal Society in 2003. She also served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society (2002–04) and was elected to a two-year term as president of the Institute of Physics in 2008. This interview was recorded on Saturday 26th July 2014 at Winchester Science Festival in front of a live audience.