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 fifteen 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 live 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 articles and books on astronomy and planetary science and is a regular expert contributor to UK News broadcasts, (from the Guardian Podcasts, to the Today Programme, the BBC's Breakfast News and GMTV), and across the BBC's factual output; from the popular children's strands Blue Peter and Newsround to the iconic astronomy magazine show The Sky at Night.
Chris was a founding scientist of the UK's National Science Line and has consultanted to Britain's Centre for Science Education, the British Council's Science Communication outreach program, the Ideas Foundation, The Institute of Ideas and The Thomson Foundation. He serves as head of media projects for the innovative education communications company GovEd and directs business TV content for the creative UK agency The Rocket Science Group.
He is a senior visiting fellow at the University of Lincoln's Department of Media Production and an external examiner on the Science Communication M.Sc. in Science Media Production at Imperial College, University of London. 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 web journalism, reporting for the BBC's first online news service, covering the British Association Science conference in 1996 - TW@BA. He continues to work at the forefront of the communications revolution as the founder and managing director of the attic room production company and the online film archive footagevault.
Behind the camera Chris has produced and directed on over one hundred programmes for the BBC. He made more than fifty films for the corporation's flagship science and technology show Tomorrow's World and went on to direct on their long running 'Secret Lives' strand and the first series of the BBC1 prime time show Best Inventions. In 2002 he produced and directed on BBC2's Science at Christmas mini-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 and received it's TV network premier the following year, when it was nominated for two Grierson awards.
During 2008 his TV work included acting as an executive producer and director of DOX Productions REMI award winning six part series 'Moon Machines' for Discovery Science Channel, and as a consultant on Dangerous Films', six part Discovery Channel series, 'When we Left Earth'. On the web he produced and directed the innovative Bebo hosted teen-drama series Jeffery's Story and in August he participated in the third Science Foo Camp at the Googleplex, outside San Francisco.
His latest book - the new Haynes guide: Apollo 11 an owner's workshop manual was published in June of 2009 in time for the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon landing and made it into Amazon's top ten list of Science & Nature books for the year. As part of the Moon Shot anniversary celebrations Chris also wrote a series of essays about Project Apollo for BBC News online.
Through his company the attic room Chris produced the remastered and restored director's cut of NASA's Apollo 11 documentary Moonwalk One. The film was acquried by the Discovery Channel for broadcast in Europe and had a limited theatrical release in the UK - premiering at the BFI in London and playing the summer festival circuit. Chris introduced the film at the 2009 Glastonbury and Big Chill festivals.
Chris worked as an adjunct curator on the July 2009 British Film Institute programme "One Giant Leap" and his first video installation "Apollo Raw and Uncut" played at the London Science Museum through the anniversary summer. It opened at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Quebec in November 2009 as 'Secrets of Apollo'; part of their exhibition 'Intermission: Films from a Heroic Future, which he also helped to curate.
Along with Keifer Sutherland he is one of the producers of the innovative 1 second film - a project from the Collaboration Foundation.
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.