c h r i s t o p h e r r i l e y
b i o g r a p h y
Writer, broadcaster and film maker Dr Christopher Riley has worked in the field of public engagement in science for over twelve years.
He gained his doctorate from Imperial College, University of London in 1995 and began reporting for the BBC Radio Science unit the same year.
He moved to BBC television in 1997 to work as series researcher for their landmark series The Planets. He co-presented the BBC's 1999 total eclipse coverage and their 30th anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11 - Moon Landings Live the same year.
In 2000 he fronted the BBC Knowledge six part cosmology series Journeys In Time and Space. The following year he worked briefly on the Sky at Night, co-presented BBC2's monthly astronomy magazine show Final Frontier, and produced and presented the corporation's coverage of the 2001 African Eclipse, the BBC's first web cast.
In 2003 he co-presented the BBC / Open University's All Night Star Party live from the Isaac Newton Telescopes on La Palma for BBC2. He is the author of more than thirty science articles and books on astronomy and planetary science.
Chris was a founding scientist of the UK's National Science Line and is a consultant to Britain's Centre for Science Education, and the science communication think tank GovEd. He is a guest lecturer at Imperial College, University of London on their Science Communication M.Sc., and a proposed visiting Professor at the University of Lincoln's Department of Media Production. He lectured at the The University of Leicester's bi-annual UK Space School between 2000 and 2005 when he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in recognition of his endeavours in public engagement in astronomy.
Chris was a pioneer of the internet reporting for the BBC during the mid 1990s, writing for their first online news service - Tomorrow's World's novel web coverage of the 1996 British Association Science conference TW@BA. He continues to work at the forefront of the new media revolution as the founder and director of the online archive companies Footagevault and The Attic Room.
Behind the camera at the BBC Chris has produced and directed over 50 films for the corporation's flagship science and technology show Tomorrow's World. He went on to direct on the first series of the BBC1 prime time show Best Inventions, and the BBC2's 2002 Science at Christmas series Can't Get Enough before joining Impossible Pictures during 2003-2004, where he produced the BBC's blockbuster space drama-documentary series Space Odyssey, winner of the UK’s prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke Award.
The following year Chris returned to the BBC to produce and direct on the sixth series of Rough Science for BBC2, set in the Colorado Rockies.
He acted as the science advisor for the BBC’s recent remakes of the science fiction classics “Quatermass” in 2005 and “A for Andromeda” in 2006. That summer he wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 astronomy series “The Cosmic Hunters” broadcast in September.
He joined DOX Productions at the end of 2005 to produce and direct on the feature documentary film In the Shadow of the Moon, winner of the 2007 Sundance World Cinema Audience Documentary award. The film opened in cinemas across the US and Europe during the autumn of that year. He is currently acting as writer/director and executive producer of DOX six part series 'Moon Machines' (w/t) for Discovery Science Channel, and is a consultant on Dangerous Films', six part Discovery Channel series, 'When we Left Earth' and Darlow Smithson's ten part cosmology series for Discovery; 'Inside Stephen Hawking's Mind'.
During his career he has flown at twice the speed of sound on Concorde, floated weightless for 30 minutes on board both Russian and European Space Agency parabolic flights and has ridden on two of NASA's astrobiology missions; chasing the Leonid meteor showers around the world for BBC News.