Ainsley Carnarvon
With over a decade of experience, Ainsley is renowned for his adeptness in crafting STEM-focused programs. His extensive international background includes collaborations with the United Nations and the European Union, particularly in advancing STEM education and innovation across the Caribbean. Currently serving as the Digital Education Strategic Programme Manager at the Heart of Midlothian Innovation Centre, Ainsley spearheads the development of novel technology and Innovation programmes and initiatives for Edinburgh's youth, while simultaneously forging career pathways into the tech industry. Committed to inclusivity, Ainsley ensures accessibility for underrepresented groups in STEM, advocating for people of colour, girls, non-binary individuals, and those with additional support needs.
Andy Cowan
Andy Cowan is the current Head Judge for the Engineering project stream of the Big Bang Competition. As a student, Andy competed in the competition himself, winning the title of UK Young Engineer of the Year in 2011. He has since won a number of other prizes and awards in the field of engineering, including from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the publication Electronics Weekly.
Caoimhe Rooney
Caoimhe Rooney is an applied mathematician with an insatiable passion for space exploration and STEM outreach. Equipped with a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Oxford, Caoimhe began her professional career at NASA Ames Research Center, working on mathematical models to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets, before joining Astroscale as a Flight Dynamics Engineer, where she contributes to the design, development and operations of cutting-edge missions to remove space debris from orbit. Motivated to banish the stigma that maths is boring, and to encourage more girls to consider careers in STEM, Caoimhe co-founded Mathematigals, an outreach initiative to make maths fun and showcase its many applications.Equipped with a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Oxford, Caoimhe began her professional career at NASA Ames Research Center, where she solves mathematical models to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. Motivated to banish the stigma that maths is boring, and to encourage more girls to consider careers in STEM, Caoimhe co-founded Mathematigals, an outreach initiative to make maths fun and showcase its many applications.
Floriane Fidegnon Edoh
Floriane Fidegnon Edoh is a Stemette and Consultant at BMNT. She has a background in manufacturing engineering and is passionate about diversity, inclusion, equity and youth engagement in STEM. She founded and led the Warwick Women’s Engineering Society, is a Royal Academy of Engineering Leaders Scholar, and regular science communicator. She is a charity trustee for Stemette Futures as well as the Chairperson of the Stemette Futures Youth board. She holds a first class BEng in Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Warwick.
Dr Giovanna G Casimiro
With extensive global experience, Dr. Giovanna has led independent projects worldwide, assisting corporations and brands, including RedBull, Finnair, Fortum, Adidas, Diesel, DKNY, DVF, Coach, D-Cave, Dundas, JPMorgan, Walmart, and more in their tech transformation journey. Dr. Giovanna G. Casimiro, an XR specialist and brand strategist since 2010, boasts over a decade of marketing and production experience in the innovation landscape. From 2021 to 2023, Dr. Giovanna served as a Lead Metaverse Producer at Decentraland Foundation, where she headed the Metaverse Fashion Week, seamlessly blending fashion with the metaverse. Her active roles include consulting, mentoring.
Helena Dodd
Helena Dodd is the current Head Judge for the Science project stream, after being a South East regional winner in 2012 and a national finalist in 2013.
Jason Bradbury
Jason Bradbury is a former host of The Gadget Show UK. When it comes to gadgets, science and all things tech, Jason is a force of nature. His own inventions, which include the world's first working jet-powered hoverboard, have become legendary.
Mark Rober
Mark Rober has made a career out of engineering, entertainment, and education. After completing degrees in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University and the University of Southern California, Rober joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004. In his nine years as a NASA engineer, seven of which were on the Mars rover Curiosity team, Rober worked on the Descent Stage (the jet pack that lowered the rover to the surface) and was responsible for some hardware on the rover top deck used for collecting dirt samples. After NASA, Mark moved to Silicon Valley and worked for 5 years doing Product Design in Apple’s Special Projects group. In 2011, Rober’s iPad-based Halloween costume inadvertently helped launch his YouTube channel, which now boasts over 27.6 million subscribers, 4 billion views and averages over 30M views per video.
Mark Wood
Mark has worked in the STEM arena for over 20 years, creating project content, in consultative and strategic roles and managing UK Government contracts linking schools and businesses around the skills agenda. He is an active STEM Ambassador and sits on strategic boards for OCR, the Maths Hubs, The Manchester Tech Forum and EngineeringUK’s Business & Industry Panel. Mark chairs the Manufacturing Technologies Association’s Education and Development Committee and is also a Governor at a school in Salford where he is from originally.
Neil Young CEng, BEng, FIChemE
Neil is the Global Engineering Capability Director at Babcock International Group. He is responsible for leadership and executive management oversight across the Group of the development and sustainment of Engineering Capability and the development and application of Engineering Integrity processes.
Sam McKaylin
Geneticist, machine learning engineer, children’s science presenter and one of a new generation of evolutionary biologists working on cutting edge science. Sam is currently researching new treatments for cancer with the use of machine learning and AI. As well as inspiring children about science, he teaches adults about machine learning and speaks widely at venues and science festivals. He is a presenter on CBeebies’ Get Set Galactic, the high energy science gameshow for 5 to 8 year olds and a regular feature across the podcast circuit.
Scott Bush
Scott Bush is the co-founder and CIO of Low Carbon Materials, a climate tech company developing material-based solutions in the race to Net-Zero.He has many years of experience in academia, he gained a first class Physics Masters degree from the Aberystwyth University and went on to do a PhD from Durham University in graphene nanocomposites. Scott has patents in the area of advanced materials and has raised grant funding and private investment upward of £2.5 million. Scott has been recognised by Forbes 30 under 30. In 2022 LCM was announced as a finalist for the prestigious Earthshot Prize.
Dr Shini Somara
Dr Somara holds an Engineering Doctorate in Computational Fluid Dynamics, after having completed a BEng(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Brunel University. In addition to her contribution to the building services industry, Shini has spent a significant proportion of her career communicating complex STEM topics through the media. Shini is the author of seven STEM books, her latest publication is entitled "Engineers Making a Difference" copies of which were donated to every secondary state school in the UK, thanks to the generous support of The Gatsby Foundation and Imperial College London. She has also broadcasted a variety of science, technology and innovation on television on networks including The BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera, Discovery, UKTV and the Science Channel. Shini is also the host of PBS Digital's Crash Course Physics, which has amassed 58 million views and Crash Course Engineering (8 million views collectively), which are available on YouTube.
Sophie Scott
Professor Sophie Scott CBE is Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, and the leader of the Speech Communication group. She studies the neurobiology of human vocal communication, from speech and sound to social interactions and non verbal emotional expressions, such as laughter. She gave the Royal Institution Christmas lectures in 2017, and was awarded the Michael Faraday prize by the Royal Society in 2021. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Science. Her first book is called 'The Brain: ten things you need to know'.
Winnie Awa
Winnie is the Founder & CEO of Carra, an award-winning AI-driven hair care platform, bringing together the power of expert-backed advice with data to personalise the textured hair experience. Winnie has 12 years experience of building innovative consumer-tech platforms for world-renowned companies like Net-a-Porter, ASOS, LVMH and EY. After seeing first hand how the textured hair customer wasn’t being served, she was determined to make a change. She initially launched cult platform Antidote Street. In running this, she had the front row seat to the biggest challenges facing customers with textured hair and thus Carra was born. Carra cuts the guesswork (and trial & error) around product discovery, reducing time spent, money and waste.