QEPrize judge, Professor Brian Cox, elected as Fellow of the Royal Society

Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering judge, Professor Brian Cox, was among 50 leading scientists to be elected as Fellows of the Royal Society in an announcement last week. The Royal Society is a self-governing fellowship, comprised of the world’s most distinguished scientists, drawn from all areas of science, engineering and medicine.

Foremost a particle physicist, Royal Society University Research Fellow and professor at the University of Manchester, Cox is also an active champion of public engagement in science and engineering.

After studying for an undergraduate master’s degree in physics from the University of Manchester, Cox went on to complete a doctorate in high energy particle physics with the same institution. He remains a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester.

Alongside his commitments to university teaching, Cox is currently working on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The experiment, which is an international collaboration of around 3000 leading physicists, was one of two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson in 2012.

Alongside authoring several books on particle physics, Professor Brian Cox has appeared in many science programmes for BBC television and radio, amongst which have been the internationally syndicated series ‘Wonders of the Solar System,’ ‘Wonders of Life’ and ‘Stargazing Live’.

Over the course of his career, Cox has been recognised not only for his contribution to the field of physics, but also for his work in communicating the appeal and excitement of science and engineering to the general public. In 2010, Cox was appointed Officer of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to science.