Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-201526 Jul 2015

Professor Monica Grady

Kirsty Young's castaway is Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University.

Well-known in scientific circles, at NASA and the European Space Agency, she came to the attention of the general public with her enthusiastic celebration when, as part of the Rosetta project, the probe Philae became the first-ever spacecraft to land on a comet - 67P - in November 2014. The spacecraft had taken ten years to journey through space and a decade was spent on the preparations.

She was born in 1958 in Leeds as the eldest of eight children. She studied chemistry and geology at Durham University and did her PhD on carbon in meteorites at Cambridge, where she worked closely with Professor Colin Pillinger on the Beagle 2 project to Mars. She first worked at the OU in 1983 before joining the Department of Mineralogy of the Natural History Museum, becoming Head of the Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy Division. She is married to Professor Ian Wright who is one of the lead scientists on the Rosetta cometary mission and they have one son. She was awarded a CBE in 2012 for services to space sciences and asteroid (4731) was named "Monicagrady" in her honour.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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Episoder(209)

Commander Chris Hadfield

Kirsty Young's castaway is Chris Hadfield.He was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station and took part in three space missions spending a total of 166 days orbiting the Earth. ...

20 Des 201535min

Kylie Minogue

Kirsty Young's castaway is Kylie Minogue.With seven number ones and ten million singles sold in the UK, she is the third-biggest selling female artist in Britain and has sold around 70 million records...

13 Des 201535min

Atul Gawande

Kirsty Young's castaway is the surgeon, author and former Reith lecturer, Atul Gawande.A general and endocrine surgeon in Boston, he is professor in both the Department of Health Policy & Management a...

6 Des 201534min

Sandi Toksvig

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sandi Toksvig.Host of BBC Radio 4's News Quiz until June 2015, she is also a writer and comedian and recently entered the world of politics, helping to found the W...

29 Nov 201535min

Gurinder Chadha

Kirsty Young's castaway is filmmaker Gurinder Chadha.Writer, director and producer behind the films Bend it like Beckham, Bhaji on the Beach and Bride and Prejudice, she began her career as a BBC news...

22 Nov 201532min

Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon, MSP.Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the fifth First Minister of Scotland in the devolved era, she is the first woman to...

15 Nov 201534min

Lord Indarjit Singh

Kirsty Young's castaway is the broadcaster and religious leader, Lord Indarjit Singh. Creator of The Sikh Messenger newspaper and co-founder of the Inter Faith Network he also has the distinction of ...

13 Nov 201535min

Marjorie Wallace

Kirsty Young's castaway is the mental health campaigner and Chief Executive of SANE, Marjorie Wallace.After leaving University College London with a psychology and philosophy degree, her first job in ...

1 Nov 201536min