Speakers

Tom Grinyer

Tom joined the Institute of Physics in June 2022 as Group Chief Executive Officer. The IOP is the sixth membership organisation he has worked for in the past 25 years and the third as chief executive.

Tom joined the IOP from the British Medical Association (BMA), where he was Group Chief Executive; during that time he led the organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic and restructured the BMA with a particular emphasis on membership engagement and experience.

Like the BMA, which owns the substantial specialist publishing business BMJ Publishing, the IOP includes IOP Publishing, which publishes more than 100 scientific titles. Tom sits on the Board.

Prior to moving to the BMA, Tom led the Royal College of Anaesthetists, which grew substantially under his leadership, and before this was Executive Director of Strategy, Communications and Policy at the Royal College of Physicians, England’s oldest medical royal college, where he was also interim Chief Executive and introduced the organisation’s first ever strategy in its 500-year history.

Member engagement and growth in membership have been constant themes throughout Tom’s career. He leads the IOP as it emerges from Covid-19, continues to tackle climate change, seeks to cement science and physics in the post-Brexit landscape, and faces up to the equality, diversity and inclusion challenges in the science sector.

David Barrie, CBE, FRIN, FLS

After studying experimental psychology and philosophy at Oxford University, David Barrie joined the British Diplomatic Service and later served in the Cabinet Office. After leaving the government service, he worked in the arts - first as co-director of the UK-wide Japan Festival 1991, and then as director of the leading visual arts charity, the Art Fund.

David is a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust, an elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and was awarded a CBE for services to the visual arts in 2010. He was chair of Make Justice Work, a campaigning organisation in the world of criminal justice reform. He has made many long voyages under sail and is an experienced navigator.

David’s first book, Sextant, was published by William Collins in 2014. It was shortlisted for the Mountbatten Literary Award and won the Royal Institute of Navigation’s Certificate of Achievement.

His second book, Incredible Journeys (Supernavigators in North America) was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2019. It was chosen as The Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year.

David acted a consultant for the National Geographic channel series, Incredible Animal Journeys (2023).

He is now at work on his first novel.

The great-great-nephew of the playwright, J. M. Barrie, David is married with two daughters and lives in London.

Ramsey Faragher, MA, Msci, PhD, Cphys, FRIN, FinstP, MION.

Ramsey is the Director and CEO of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He is also a world-leading and multi-award winning expert in signal processing, sensor fusion, and machine-learning for positioning and navigation systems. He is a Chartered Physicist, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Bye Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge. He holds three degrees in Physics from the University of Cambridge, and has authored over 100 patents. He was an early pioneer in machine learning systems for opportunistic radio positioning, and is the inventor of the Supercorrelation synthetic aperture processing technique for GNSS.

Andy Proctor, MA, FRIN, FIET, CEng.

Andy Proctor is the current Vice President of the Royal Institute of Navigation, a Director of RethinkPNT, a UK based SME and a resilience researcher at Imperial College. He has specific market and technical expertise in the defence and space sectors, position navigation and timing systems and satellite communications. Andy has over 15 years industrial experience, 8 years as a UK government technology investor, including being a European Space Agency Board member and National Delegate. 2 years as the Technical Director of the UK Space Agency, and technical lead for PNT across the UK Government for the Cabinet Office.

Professor Marek Ziebart

Marek Ziebart is Professor of Space Geodesy at University College London and Director of the Space Geodesy and Navigation Laboratory. With over 25 years of expertise in space vehicle flight dynamics, he has pioneered global standards in photon pressure modelling, GNSS multipath mitigation, and satellite orbit determination. His innovations support missions from Galileo to Jason-1, and inform national infrastructure like the UK’s VORF system. A leader in both academia and policy, he advises ESA, the IGS, and the UK government. He is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and recipient of the 2018 Tycho Brahe Award for space navigation.