Pallab Ghosh
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Pallab Ghosh is a Science Correspondent for BBC News.
Born in Cuttack, India in 1962, he was brought to the United Kingdom by his mother in 1963.
He has been a Science Journalist since 1984. He has won the Media Natura Environment Award and BT's Technology Journalist of the Year.
Career Highlights include interviewing Neil Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee and Stephen Hawking. His most enjoyable story was going to Chad in 2002 to cover the discovery of a 7 million year old skull of an early hominid - possibly a human ancestor. Another favourite was coverage of the failed Beagle 2 mission to Mars.
Although he enjoys good fun science stories he's been among a new breed of science journalists attempting to do more than just cheer lead science. With many developments, particularly in the biosciences, having important social, political and ethical dimensions he's tried to adopt a constructively critical approach.
In this vein Pallab has covered the human genome project, cloning and stem cell research and GM crops. He's also broken several important stories, notably Dolly the sheep having arthritis, abandonment of the construction of a primate research centre by Cambridge University because of fears of attacks from animal Rights Activists and that the UK's Ministry of Food and Farming were on the verge of slaughtering the country's entire sheep flock for fear that they had a form of BSE until it was discovered that governemnt scientists had mixed up sheep brain samples with those of cattle.
He has been head of the Association of British Science Writers and is an executive Board Member of the World Federation of Science Journalists. In thse roles he has attempted to promote a more "Kick-Ass" approach to science journalism with the introduction of national and international prizes for investigative journalism. Most other science prizes in his opinion reward propaganda.
Pallab has also introduced schemes to get people from more diverse backgrounds into the higher levels of science journalism. The profession, especially in the UK, is drawn from a privileged elite. He believes that those reporting on scientific issues that increasingly have a social dimension will be better equipped if they are more representative of their community.
He began his career in the British Electronics and Computer Press before joining New Scientist as the magazine's Science News Editor. Pallab Joined BBC News in 1989. He worked as a general news producer on the World at One and then went on to become a Senior Producer on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.
