Timandra Harkness

Writer, presenter, comedian.

Timandra Harkness is a writer, broadcaster and presenter.

Timandra is a regular on BBC Radio, writing and presenting BBC Radio 4’s FutureProofing and other series including How To Disagree, Steelmanning and Political School. BBC Radio documentaries include Data, Data Everywhere, Divided Nation, What Has Sat-Nav Done To Our Brains, and Five Knots. She was resident reporter on all 8 seasons of social psychology series The Human Zoo and is now the spare presenter for Radio 4’s Profile.

Since winning the Independent newspaper’s column-writing competition, she has written for many publications including the Telegraph, Guardian, Sunday Times, Unherd, BBC Focus magazine, WIRED, Unherd, the New Statesman, Men’s Health and Significance (the journal of the Royal Statistical Society).

Timandra chairs and speaks at public events for clients including Cheltenham Science Festival, the Royal Society, the British Council, the Royal Geographical Society, the RSA, the Institute of Ideas, the British Library, Wellcome Collection, the Alan Turing Institute, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and many others.

Her book Big Data: does size matter? published by Bloomsbury Sigma in 2016, came out in an updated paperback edition in June 2017. She is currently writing her second non-fiction book for Harper Collins.

After performing improvised & stand up comedy, & touring with a tented circus, she formed the first comedy science double-act in the UK with neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher. Since then she has written and performed scientific and mathematical comedy from Adelaide (Australia) to Pittsburgh PA.

In 2010 she co-wrote & performed Your Days Are Numbered: The Maths of Death, with stand-up mathematician Matt Parker. They performed the show to average audiences of 100.3 and 4 star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, then toured it in the UK and Australia. Timandra’s science comedy sincethen includes cabaret, gameshows, and solo live show Brainsex (with Socrates the rat).

Timandra has a BA in Film and Drama with Art & Art History, a BSc in Mathematics & Statistics, and is a Graduate Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. She is currently studying for an MA in Philosophy at Birkbeck College

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