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Professor Ben Garrod is an academic, author, and broadcaster. He is a multi-disciplinary scientist, with a focus spanning evolution, zoology, and conservation. Ben is an award-winning broadcaster, presenting and co-presenting a wide range of television and radio science documentaries and series, and has written numerous books, where the focus is on inspiring younger audiences to be passionate, inquisitive, and confident about science.

Ben is Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement at The University of East Anglia, in Norwich. His Masters was in Wild Animal Biology at the Royal Veterinary College, London, and his PhD at UCL, entitled ‘Primates of the Caribbean’, focused on studying the early stages of speciation in island-living monkeys through molecular and anatomical changes.

In 2014, Ben presented his first TV documentary, with the award-winning BBC4 series ‘Secrets of Bones’. Since then, he has presented a wide range of science and wildlife documentaries and series, including ‘Secrets of Skin’ (2019) and ‘Baby Chimp Rescue’ (2020). He has worked alongside Prof Alice Roberts, presenting ‘The Day the Dinosaurs Died’ (2017), and with Prof Danielle George in the series ‘Hyper-evolution: the Rise of Robots’ (2017). He also co-presented ‘Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur’ (2016) and ‘Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard’ (2021) alongside Sir David Attenborough.

Across radio and other digital audio platforms, Ben has fronted various series and stand-alone documentaries, including ‘A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs’ and ‘A Grown-Up Guide to Oceans’ (both for Audible Original), and a whole host of BBC Radio 4 projects, including ‘Super Senses’, ‘Bone Stories’, and ‘The Human Hive’, alongside three series of the hugely successful anatomy series ‘Wild Inside’ with veterinarian and broadcaster Dr Jess French. He has also been featured on ‘A Life Scientific’ and has guest presented on ‘BBC Inside Science’.

Ben grew up on the Norfolk coast and, from a very early age, was fascinated by the natural world, splitting a love for local wildlife with a desire to work in tropical biology, also. Ben is an accomplished field biologist and over the last twenty years has been fortunate enough to focus his work on primates, living and working in Uganda, Madagascar, Gabon, Liberia, Cameroon, with chimpanzees, gorillas, and lemurs; in Indonesia, working with critically-endangered Sumatran orangutans; and across various Caribbean islands researching introduced green monkeys. Additionally, his work has included investigating archaeological animal remains in Chinese Imperial tombs, assisting in anatomical assessments of stranded sperm whales, and excavating some of the largest dinosaur remains ever discovered, in Argentina.

Ben is a prolific author, and loves writing for children and young adults, to “try and help them understand concepts in science, and nurture a love for the natural world around them.” He has written about his work with great apes in ‘The chimpanzee and me’ and has written two eight-part, non-fiction series; ‘Ultimate Dinosaurs’ (‘Tyrannosaurus rex’, ‘Spinosaurus’, ‘Velociraptor’, ‘Diplodocus’, ‘Triceratops’, ‘Stegosaurus’, ‘Ankylosaurus’, and ‘Microraptor’), and ‘Extinct – the story of life on Earth’ (‘Hallucigenia’, ‘Dunkleosteus’, ‘Trilobite’, ‘Lisowicia’, ‘Tyrannosaurus rex’, ‘Megalodon’, ‘Thylacine’, and ‘Hainan gibbon’). Bens’ first kids’ fiction series, called ‘The Adventures of a dog called Jack-Jack’ features his very own dog, who grew up in Africa helping orphaned chimpanzees, but now seems to prefer coffee shops and croissants.

Ben represents numerous charities close to his heart, in a range of different capacities. He is Patron for the British Hen Welfare Trust, a Patron for Humanists UK, President for the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society, Vice President for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, a Patron for the Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA), Ambassador for the Marine Conservation Society, Patron for the Youth STEMM Award, and a Patron for the Norwich Science Festival.

Ben is an experienced public speaker and has appeared at numerous festivals (such as the Hay Literary Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe), has hosted different charity events, and has given various corporate talks.

Ben is a keen trail and ultra-marathon runner, but still enjoys a good Park Run and a slow dog walk near his Norfolk home, too.

Megan McCubbin is one of the nation’s leading wildlife presenters, combining her expertise as a scientist with a love of adventure and a passion for raising awareness of climate issues and biodiversity.

Megan is best known as one of the faces of BBC Two’s long-running and BAFTA award-winning series Springwatch and Winterwatch.
In 2022 she joined the presenting team of BBC One’s Animal Park, bringing a new conservation angle to the much-loved longstanding TV show. She has also presented BBC Three’s Undercover Tourist, CBBC’s Planet Defenders, Al Jazeera’s award-winning Earthrise, BBC Earth’s Amaze me and BBC Two’s Chris & Meg’s Wild Summer. Megan also hosted the BBC Proms Earth Day concert in 2022 which featured Hans Zimmer and Aurora.

Megan has presented films for ITV’s This Morning and appeared on Morning Live (BBC One), Steph’s Packed Lunch (Channel 4), BBC Bitesize and BBC Radio.
She co-presents and produces the podcast series The Frogs Bollocks with James Stevens, an entertaining and engaging way to bring a new audience to natural history.

During lockdown she co-founded the Self Isolating Bird Club YouTube series with Chris Packham. Her first book, Back To Nature, was published in 2020, co-authored with Chris. It highlights the state of nature conservation in the UK and serves as a reminder of the importance of protecting it. In 2023, Megan wrote Atlas of Endangered Species highlighting the global conservation of species balancing on the brink of extinction, and the book provides the basis for her live theatre tour.

Megan has extensive experience in scientific research, filmmaking and photography around the World on the plains of Africa, the oceans surrounding the UK, the glaciers of Antarctica and beyond.

Megan is an accomplished public speaker and has given talks at COP26, the Cornwall Ecological Summit, local theatres and schools. She has co-hosted the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards at the Natural History Museum since 2020.

Megan graduated with a BSc degree in Zoology from the University of Liverpool in 2018. Diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, she worked hard and excelled in field work and communication. In between her studies, she spent time volunteering to aid research and charity organisations around the world. This included working as a behavioural intern in China to rehabilitate bears from the bear bile farming industry and researching the personalities and ecology of shark species at Bimini Sharklab in the Bahamas. Megan has experience and knowledge working in various scientific fields and communicating complex scientific concepts to wider audiences.

Megan is President of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and Patron of the Winchester Science Centre and Helping Rhinos. She is an Ambassador for the RSPB, WWF, the League Against Cruel Sports, Rainforest Concern, the Beaver Trust, Global Animal Welfare, the Scottish Seabird Centre, the Wild Otter Trust, Thin Green Line UK, the National Oceanography Centre and Made By Dyslexia.

Dr Anjana Khatwa is an Earth Scientist specialising in bringing stories about the origins and formation of natural landscapes to life for a wide range of audiences.

Anjana appeared as a ‘super-contributor’ on BBC Four’s three-part series, Beach Live, where she was the show’s resident geologist expert, engaging audiences with her insight and knowledge about geology and fossils. She has also appeared several times on ITV’s This Morning and Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh., My Cornwall with Fern Britton and Lighthouses: Building the Impossible both on Channel 5, Villages by the Sea on BBC Two and Britain’s Novel Landscapes on More 4.

Anjana has appeared as a regular expert contributor on many natural history programmes such as BBC Two’s Fossil Detectives, The History Channel’s How the Earth was made, ITV1’s Treasures of Britain and PBS’s Treasures of the Earth.

She is an established expert in learning, engagement and inclusion within natural heritage, museums and the geosciences with multiple publications and articles in leading journals and popular magazines such as Nature Geoscience and BBC Wildlife. In November 2021, Anjana was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize, a biennial literary prize for nature writing. In 2023, she was selected as a judge for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for nature writing. Her debut non-fiction book, The Whispers of Rock, is a global story of how rocks have not only shaped our world but also our lives. It will be published as a hardback in September 2025 by Little, Brown (UK) and Basic Books (US).

Anjana has won multiple awards over her stellar career in the geosciences including Royal Geographical Society Geographical Award, the RH Worth Medal by the Geological Society of London and the prestigious Halstead Medal from the Geologists’ Association. In 2020, she won a National Diversity Award as a Positive Role Model for Race, Faith and Religion.

Born and bred in Slough, Anjana had a humble upbringing in an urban environment but grew to love the natural world through holidays to places such as Kenya, which is where her family originate from. Anjana has a BSc. in Earth Science and a Ph.D. in Geography where she specialised in glacial geology. Her diverse background and voice brings a unique perspective to her work.

An experienced, passionate and inspiring public speaker, Anjana delivers lectures and speeches that are witty, light and insightful. She is in particular demand for her thought provoking lectures about the role of women and minorities in science, careers in the geosciences and new perspectives on understanding the geological sciences.

Anjana lives in Dorset with her husband and their three children. She enjoys an active lifestyle through running, swimming and also exploring the countryside of Dorset. A major pastime is spent filling her house with rocks and fossils she finds on the Jurassic Coast.