Contributors

Elsa Richardson is an academic at the University of Strathclyde. She holds a Chancellor's Fellowship in the History of Health and Wellbeing at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH). In addition to lecturing in the history of medicine and her own research, she also curates arts and science events for public institutions, including the Wellcome Collection. In 2018/19 she was named one of the BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinkers.

Thomas Rid is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author most recently of the acclaimed Rise of the Machines (2016), a history of cybernetics. He testified on disinformation in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Peter Riddell is the former director of the Institute of Government and current Public Appointments Commissioner for the British Government. He is a journalist and was a regular contributor to the Financial Times, where he was US Editor and Washington Bureau Chief until 1991, and the Times. Over his career, he has gained access to the innermost reaches of Whitehall and has written seven books and dozens of articles revealing the inner-workings of British Politics. This work earned him a President's Medal from the British Academy and, in 2012, a CBE.

Wilbert Rideau has won many journalism awards. He was editor of theAngolite, the first prison publication to be nominated for a National Magazine Award. It was nominated seven times under his editorship. He also co-directed the documentary The Farm which was nominated for an Oscar. He now lives in Louisiana.

Bill Ridgers is the business education editor at The Economist, editor of the Gulliver business travel blog and cricket editor for The Economist's sports blog. He has written and edited a number of reports on talent management, education and the cost of doing business. Prior to joining the newspaper, he edited the 'Which MBA?' guide for eight years.

Dr Jacqueline Riding specialises in British history and art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Formerly Assistant Curator at the Palace of Westminster and Director of the Handel House Museum, she is the Book Reviews Editor for The Art Newspaper, a consultant for museums, galleries, historic buildings, and historic adviser on feature films including Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner and Peterloo and Wash Westmoreland's Colette. Her books include Jacobites: A New History of the '45 Rebellion, Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre, Hogarth: Life in Progress and Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin's London.

Jim Robbins is a frequent contributor to the science section of the New York Times. He has written for Vanity Fair,Sunday Times, Scientific American, Discover, Psychology Today and numerous other magazines. He lives in 20 acres of woods in Helena, Montana.

Simon Rich has written for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, and he worked on Inside Out for Pixar. He is the creator and showrunner of TV series Man Seeking Woman (based on THE LAST GIRLFRIEND ON EARTH) and the forthcoming Miracle Workers, starring Steve Buscemi and Daniel Radcliffe, which is based on his novel WHAT IN GOD'S NAME. His other collections include Spoiled Brats and The World of Simon Rich. He is a contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4.

Ren Richards is the pen name for New York Times and USA Today Bestselling YA author Lauren DeStefano. DeStefano has published seven YA novels, four middle-grade novels and the psychological thriller, The Broken Ones.

C. E. Riley is a writer and director of the literary festival, Primadonna, which is described as 'books, with a little bit of rock'n'roll' – a festival that showcases established and emerging voices that aren't heard enough in the mainstream. She lives in London, and has previously published two works of non-fiction. Is This Love? is her debut novel.