Sophie Scott

Professor Sophie Scott CBE is Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She studies the neurobiology of human vocal communication, from speech and sound to social interactions and nonverbal 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. Thanks to Dorothy Bishop, she has an honorary degree from the University of Poppleton.

About Dorothy:

"I first met Dorothy when I came to the (then) MRC APU in 1993. It is no exaggeration to say that she was and is an absolute inspiration - an outstanding scientist, who gives fantastic talks, and who is thoughtful and attentive in helping more junior colleagues develop their careers. In the mid-1990s she filled in for a missing lecturer at an EPS meeting, at incredibly short notice, and gave one of the best talks I have ever seen. She is unafraid of asking difficult questions, and of doing the challenging science that can help answer those questions. Plus, she let me put her in pantomimes three times, so she is clearly a woman of great talent and discernment. "