
4:00pm-5:00pm on Sunday 21 March
Please join us for a beautiful choral online Festival Evensong service with keynote speaker Professor Tom McLeish, FRS.
Everyone, of all faiths, and of no faith, is most warmly welcome.
Great St. Mary’s has been witnessing to Christian truth in the centre of Cambridge for over 800 years. It is a welcoming, inclusive, friendly church, with a large gathered congregation of all ages, great music and preaching, and a particular calling as the spiritual heart of the University of Cambridge. We seek to reach out beyond these walls in many ways, supporting many local and international projects, and working with people of all faiths and none to bring hope and light to our world. Great St. Mary’s is renowned for its great debates, many on science and religion.
Professor Tom McLeish, FRS, is a physicist, academic interdisciplinary leader, and writer. He is inaugural Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics at the University of York, England, and is also affiliated to the University’s Centre for Medieval Studies and Humanities Research Centre.
His scientific research in ‘soft matter and biological physics,’ has inspired collaborations with chemists, engineers, and biologists to study relationships between molecular structure and emergent material properties, recognized by major awards in the USA and Europe. He has conceived, won funding for, and directed several large interdisciplinary collaborations and currently leads the UK ‘Physics of Life’ network. He holds a 5-year ESPRC personal research fellowship focusing on the physics of protein signalling and the self-assembly of silk fibres.
From 2008 to 2014 he served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University and was from 2012-2015 Vice President for Science at the UK Institute of Physics, and from 2015-2020 Chair of the Royal Society’s Education Committee. He is currently a Council Member of the Royal Society, a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation, and chair of Harvard University’s Knox postgraduate awards