Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker is deputy director of the Centre for Social Relations at Coventry University. She has a diverse disciplinary background. Having originally studied environmental sciences, Dr Elsdon-Baker completed her PhD in the history and philosophy of evolutionary theory – exploring the feedback between scientific knowledge and public space understanding of key concepts and theories of inheritance. After completing her doctoral research, she taught in the Philosophy departments at the University of Leeds and the University of Durham. She then moved from academia for nearly five years to work for the British Council firstly as Head of the Darwin Now Project and, most recently, as Director of the Belief in Dialogue Programme.