Gresham College Lectures

100 years ago this year, Edwin Hubble published the first conclusive evidence that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way. This lecture, using new results from our latest space telescopes and ground-based instruments, surveys the diversity of systems that we’ve found since, from giant and beautiful spirals to mysterious Little Red Dots.

This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 18th March 2026 at Conway Hall, London.

Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.

Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’.

Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/universe-100

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on the 10th of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inna Hall, London
Professor Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He took degrees at Cambridge and then Oxford Universities, and was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Learned Society of Wales, and has won awards for teaching and research.
He has lectured all over the world, authored twenty books and ninety-six essays, appeared in or presented scores of television and radio programmes, and sits on the editorial boards of six journals concerned with the history of religion and magic.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/goddess-bridget
Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/
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This lecture was recorded by Professor Melissa Lane on 5th March 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.

She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.

Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/oligarchs-discontents

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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Hatred is one of the most destructive human emotions, responsible for some of the greatest atrocities that humans have committed against each other. But why did it evolve in the first place? What is the evolutionary advantage of hating someone? Why is hate the ‘evil twin’ of love? And will we ever be able to ‘treat’ hatred and open the door to a utopian world of peaceful coexistence?

This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 4th of March 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, and (interim) Chief Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency, Robin May was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic in May 2022. Between July 2020 and September 2025 he served as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
Professor May’s early training was in Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford, followed by a PhD on mammalian cell biology at University College London and the University of Birmingham. After postdoctoral research on gene silencing at the Hubrecht Laboratory, The Netherlands, he returned to the UK in 2005 to establish a research program on human infectious diseases. He was Director of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham from 2017-2020. 
Professor May continues his work on Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham. A Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Wolfson Royal Society Research Merit Fellow and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Professor May specialises in research into human infectious diseases, with a particular focus on how pathogens survive and replicate within host organisms.
As the FSA’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor May provides expert scientific advice to the UK government and plays a critical role in helping to understand how scientific developments will shape the work of the FSA, as well as the strategic implications of any possible changes.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/why-hate

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
 
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In this lecture, we glimpse our best selves and compare that to a world where we lose everything of ourselves to AI. We are glorious creations that revel in agency, freedom and creativity. What do innovations such as cars that don’t need us to drive and creative AIs that remove the effort of, say, writing or music making mean in this context? Further, with a future being forged by limited perspectives, how can human diversity inform better AI for all?  

This lecture was recorded by Professor Matt Jones on the 17th of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inna Hall, London

Matt Jones is a computer scientist at Swansea University - and a Fellow of the British Computer Society - who works alongside colleagues from many other disciplines and directly with everyday folk across the world to explore the future of digital technologies. Over the last 30-plus years, this human-centred approach has led to novel approaches for, amongst other things,  mobile phone-based information searching and browsing, pedestrian navigation, voice assistants and deformable displays.  

Much of his work has been driven by intense and sustained engagements with “low resource” communities from informal settlements in India, South Africa, and Kenya. Through their generous and gracious participation, these extra-ordinary users with the fresh and diverse perspectives have stimulated insights into the future of digital technologies for everyone, globally. In all this work, Matt works as part of a long-standing collaborative team with Jen Pearson, Simon Robinson and Thomas Reitmaier (from Swansea) and colleagues in India (including Dani Raju) and South Africa (including Minah Radebe). 

His work has been supported by the UK’s science funders (EPSRC and UKRI). Currently, this funding includes a Fellowship to explore the future of interactive AI and leadership roles in responsible AI and inclusive digital technologies. This funding has led to a series of impactful publications, talks and influences on people, policies, and practices. 

Matt has collaborated with private, public and third sector organisations, including Microsoft, the NHS, Google, IIT-B, the BBC and IBM. He is a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office’s Research Advisory Group and Welsh Government’s AI reviews.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ai-humanity

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege
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