Speakers Confirmed for the 224th Session
Twelve experts from a wide range of disciplines will deliver lectures to the Society between October and March. All lectures will be held in the University of Glasgow’s Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre.
All lectures begin at 7.30pm and conclude with refreshments at around 9pm. They are free to members but non-members are asked to make a donation of £3.
1 October 2025: Prof Sir Jim Smith
Professor, Francis Crick Institute & President, Zoological Society of London
How Lessons from a Frog Can Mend a Broken Heart 1 October 2025
15 October 2025: Prof Daniel Susskind
Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College
Growth: A reckoning
29 October 2025: Prof Barbara Maher
Professor Emerita of Environmental Science at Lancaster University
Magnetism and the Brain: Pollution, particles and Alzheimer’s disease
12 November 2025: Prof Femi Oyebode
Honorary Professor of Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, University of Birmingham
Psychopathology of the Self: Implications for philosophy
26 November 2025: Martin Sixsmith
Former BBC Moscow Correspondent, presenter and author of Putin and the Return of History
Putin, Trump and the New Cold War
10 December 2025: Dr David Walsh
Senior Lecturer in Health Inequalities, University of Glasgow
Rotten Politics and Early Death: Health inequalities in Scotland and the UK
14 January 2025: Prof Mark Williams
Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester
The Fossils Being Formed Today Will Show how Humankind Disrupted Life on Earth
28 January 2025: Prof Murray Pittock
Bradley Professor of Literature and Pro Vice Principal, University of Glasgow
The Roots and Fruits of Scotland’s Global History
11 February 2025: Prof Lise Autogena
Professor of Cross-Disciplinary Art, Sheffield Hallam University & Director of NIRS, Greenland
Greenland: What next? Reflections from a research station in South Greenland
25 February 2025: Dr Elisabeth Kendall
Arabist, author, and Mistress [President] of Girton College, Cambridge
The Houthis and the Red Sea Conflict in the Broader Middle East Context
11 March 2025: Dr Sarah Ogilvie
Senior Research Fellow in Linguistics, University of Oxford
The Dictionary People: The unsung heroes of the Oxford English Dictionary
25 March 2025: Prof Dame Linda Partridge
Weldon Professor of Biometry at the Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London
Healthy Ageing: The hype and the hope