Professor Lucy Rogers

BEng Mechanical Engineering, 1995; PhD Engineering 2001. Fylde College.

Currently the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Visiting Professor of Engineering: Creativity and Communication at Brunel University, Lucy Rogers has become a champion for widening participation into science and engineering, inspiring more girls and young women to consider careers in relevant areas.

Well known as a judge on the BBC’s popular Robot Wars series, her book, It's Only Rocket Science: An Introduction in Plain English has become a popular introduction to the subject in schools. Her work has been highly varied, from solving animatronic problems with fibreglass dinosaurs, to providing strategies to understand and counter the increasing challenges of space debris in satellite operations.

Lucy is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the British Interplanetary Society.

Chris Austin CBE

MBA, Graduate College, 1993.

Chris Austin is a highly regarded and experienced senior civil servant who works currently as the Deputy CEO for the Africa Investment Summit. In his previous role, he was the Senior Lead, Ebola response with the Department for International Development (DFID).

Prior to this, Chris was deployed to the Caribbean where he led the UK’s response to Hurricanes Maria and Irma as head of the UK taskforce (2017). He has directed the Western Asia department, playing an important part in developing the UK’s strategy to both Afghanistan and Iraq’s reconstruction.

He was DFID’s Country Director in Bangladesh, as well as working in the UK on national security issues, and was awarded a CBE for services to international development in 2017.

Dr Martin Loučka

PhD in Health Research, Graduate College, 2014.

Martin Loučka is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding emerging leaders in palliative care in Europe. Since graduating from Lancaster with a PhD, he has become the Director of the Centre of Palliative Care in Prague, the first research centre of its kind in the Czech Republic.

His research has been highly innovative, including investigations of how existential psychotherapy, which treats death as one of the fundamental givens of existence, can benefit people living with incurable diseases.

His work hasattracted international attention, and the European Association for Palliative Care has recognised his outstanding achievements through its Young Investigator Award. Martin is a former Fulbright Scholar in the US and a champion of universal palliative care for all.