Christopher Riley

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Christopher Riley (born 1967) is a British writer, broadcaster and film maker specialising in the history of science. He has a PhD from Imperial College, University of London and pioneered the use of digital elevation models in the study of mountain range geomorphology and evolution.

For the last fifteen years he has worked in the field of public engagement in science.

He makes frequent appearances on British television and radio, broadcasting mainly on space flight, astronomy and planetary science. He is a veteran of two NASA astrobiology missions (Leonid MAC) from 1998 and 1999 – reporting on their progress for BBC news. He co-presented the BBC's coverage of the 1999 and 2001 solar eclipses, and fronted their astronomy magazine show Final Frontier, their cosmology series Journeys in Time and Space, and their live All Night Star Party – a co-production with the Open University. In 2006 he wrote and presented BBC Radio 4's cosmology series The Cosmic Hunters.

Behind the camera he has written and directed more than 50 films for the BBC's classic science magazine show Tomorrow's World and was a producer and director on series six of Rough Science.

In 2004 he produced the BBC's two part drama documentary Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets, for which he was honoured with a Sir Arthur Clarke Award. He is the author of the book of the series.

More recently he was the science consultant on the BBC's remakes of their science fiction cult classics A for Andromeda (2006) and Quatermass (2005).

He is a co-producer of the film In the Shadow of the Moon, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007.