Overview

David Kirby was a practicing evolutionary geneticist before leaving bench science to become Professor of Science Communication Studies at the University of Manchester.

His experiences as a member of the scientific community have informed his internationally recognized studies into the interactions between science and entertainment media. Several of his publications address the relationship between cinema, genetics, biotechnology and cultural meanings. He has also studied how media professionals utilize, negotiate and transform science in order to tell stories about science in movies and on television. His book Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema examines collaborations between scientists and the entertainment industry in the production of movies and demonstrates how these fictional texts affect real world science and technology. He received an Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust to analyse the interactions among the biosciences, religion and entertainment media. He is currently writing a book titled Indecent Science: Religion, Science and Movie Censorship, which will explore how religiously motivated movie censorship groups modified film narratives in order to tell what they considered to be more acceptable stories about science as a social, cultural, and political force.