Speaker:
Professor Barbara Maher
Bio:
Prof Barbara Maher is Professor Emerita and formerly the director of the Centre for Environmental Magnetism and Palaeomagnetism at Lancaster University. Prof Maher was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2024. Amongst other recent prizes, awards and distinctions, Barbara was the Edward Bullard Lecturer at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2021 (AGU Named Lectures are awarded to distinguished scientists with proven leadership and discoveries in their fields). She was awarded Fellowship of the AGU in 2020. In 2014, she received the Schlumberger Award (now the Neumann Medal), the most prestigious honour bestowed by the Mineralogical Society of Gt Britain & Ireland, for scientific excellence in mineralogy and its applications. For outstanding teaching, she received a Pilkington Teaching Award in 2013. From 2006 to 2012, Barbara held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2006-2012). In 2005, she was awarded by the Institute of Physics the Chree Medal and Prize (2005) for ‘pioneering contributions to the study of magnetic signals from the geological record as a means of determining climatic changes’).
Date:
29 October 2025
Time:
7:30pm – 9:00pm
Summary
Prof Maher’s major research interests are in Environmental Magnetism and Palaeomagnetism. She led the team which recently discovered the abundant presence of externally-derived magnetite, and co-associated metal-bearing air pollution nanoparticles in the human brain, identifying for the first time a possible causal role for these particles in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease.
