Research Records #37 Professor Tony Ryan Interviews Professor Tim Birkhead

Born in Leeds, Professor Tim Birkhead attended Leeds Grammar School, where he developed his twin loves of art and natural history. He went to do a Biology degree at Newcastle University graduating in 1972.

As an undergraduate and keen ornithologist he went to a conference in Oxford, he was subsequently offered a PhD studentship there to study guillemots on Skomer Island.

Following his 1976 PhD from Oxford University he was appointed to a lectureship in Zoology in Sheffield University, and came through the ranks to become Professor of Behavioural Ecology in 1992, a position he held until his retirement.

His work has covered post-copulatory sexual selection, population biology of birds, and the history of science, in particular, reproduction and ornithology.

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004. The thing that sets him apart from the majority of academics are his popular science books; for example Promiscuity, The Red Canary, The Wisdom of Birds, and The Most Perfect Thing.

Tracklist

Playing tracks by Free, Cream, Fairport Convention, J J Cale, Caroline Shaw and more.