I am Curriculum Director for Oxford Catalyst, an educational company offering critical and creative thinking workshops for 11–18 year olds.

My Fellowship involved using critical thinking to examine brain scanning-based lie detection in the USA and India. I spent my time meeting and questioning people using, or trying to use, this technology for civil and criminal legal cases, as well as scientists and ethicists about the issues surrounding it.

I was particularly interested in this subject as I wanted to know if the technology was capable of doing what it claimed (or might be able to achieve in the future), in seeing how scientific technologies are used and considered in a legal setting and comparing them to more traditional forms of evidence. I was interested in how judges and juries weigh up scientific with non-scientific evidence when neither can be considered wholly reliable, such as eyewitness testimony.

I came to the Fellowship from a background working in science communication and engagement. The Fellowship helped my career by giving me insight into science in society issues and how they play out in different parts of the world.