Making Waves: The Lecture Series
Alumni, supporters and friends are invited to join us for a series of inspiring talks given by some of our leading academics. During this series we will explore everything from computing to climate change, from healthcare to defence. We hope you can join us.
Available to register now
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St Andrews and Scottish Art
Venue: Lyon & Turnbull, 33 Broughton Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH1 3RR
Time: 6pm
Title: St Andrews and Scottish Art at Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh
As part of the Making Waves Lecture Series, the Development team invites you to an evening celebrating St Andrews and Scottish Art, kindly hosted by Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.
The Lyon & Turnbull saleroom will be set up for viewing their forthcoming auctions of jewellery and watches, and also their flagship Scottish Paintings & Sculpture sale which, in recent years, has seen record-breaking results for Scottish pictures, in particular for the Scottish Colourists.
Meanwhile the University’s Wardlaw Museum is holding a major new exhibition, From These Parts, exploring the nature of Scottish art and celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. The exhibition draws heavily on the University’s Harry and Margery Boswell Collection, our important and growing collection of 20th and 21st century Scottish art which was founded - and has been supported over three decades - by the philanthropy of the Boswell family.
Alice Strang, Associate Director at Lyon & Turnbull and a member of the Boswell Collection committee will give her expert insights into highlights from Lyon & Turnbull’s Scottish Paintings sale. Struan Watson, Curator of From These Parts will join Alice to discuss the exhibition, the Boswell Collection and the University’s wider Scottish art collections.
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Dr John Elliott - School of Computer Science
Venue: Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: The SETI Post Detection Hub - Preparing science and society for the discovery of extra-terrestrial life
As part of the Making Waves Lecture Series, the Development team invites you to the next event with Dr John Elliott, Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science and the Coordinator for the SETI Post Detection Hub at the University of St Andrews.
In this talk, Dr Elliott explores one of the most profound questions humanity has ever asked: Are we alone in the Universe?
Amongst many new discoveries, our technology now reveals that there are hundreds of billions - perhaps even trillions - of other Galaxies in the observable Universe, and amongst the hundreds of billions of stars in our own Galaxy, there are hundreds of billions of planets – many that are suitable for supporting life, even as we know it.
The discovery of life beyond Earth would be an event of unparalleled significance. Preparedness for such high-impact events is crucial to our security and resilience - scientifically, socially, and politically. While we cannot predict when such a discovery may occur, we can ensure that we are not caught unprepared or rudderless when it does.
Dr Elliott will introduce the pioneering work of the SETI Post Detection Hub at the University of St Andrews—an international (currently unique), UK-based centre leading global efforts to coordinate scientific, societal, and regulatory readiness for the detection of extraterrestrial life. Through its roadmap and framework for managing extraordinary discoveries and other global-impact events, the Hub is helping shape a future where humanity can respond with clarity, cooperation, and purpose.
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Professor Richard Whatmore – Modern History
Venue: Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: TBC
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Professor Peter Wahl - Physics and Astronomy
Venue: Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: TBC
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Professor Rhiannon Purdie – English
Venue: Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: TBC
Previous events
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Dr Paul Webb – School of Chemistry
This event is now over.
Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: Transitioning to a sustainable future
At the University of St Andrews, we are committed to creating a more sustainable future for society.
Decarbonisation of the UK economy—and beyond—requires the development of innovative low-carbon technologies at an unprecedented pace and scale. With our expertise in energy storage, electrolyser technology, and the development of sustainable chemical processes, we are at the forefront of this transformation. Dr Paul Webb is currently leading an ambitious project around the future energy system at our Eden Campus, where in September we will open our Green Hydrogen Accelerator. This first-of-its-kind facility will serve as a hub for open innovation, exploring concepts like Power-to-X and BECCUS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage). The facility will provide the infrastructure needed to accelerate the development of processes for the sustainable manufacture of products ranging from polymers, fertilisers and detergents to fully synthetic aviation fuels - all from just water and components of air.
Join us to hear the major challenges we must overcome to reach national net-zero targets – and how St Andrews is addressing these and accelerating the transition to a more sustainable and low-carbon energy future.
Be part of the conversation—and the solution. Let’s shape the future together.
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Professor Simon Dobson – School of Computer Science
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Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: Can we afford AI (and the rest of computing)?
Computing is amazing! It has transformed how we live and interact, and has been utterly transformational for most sciences. Migrating a lot of computing tasks to the cloud has reduced the costs of entry and ownership for businesses and laboratories, and the recent interest in AI is rapidly changing the capabilities of many systems.
But computing in the cloud is still computing, and computing consumes enormous amounts of power and water -- to the extent that it can affect local power grids and aquifers. It also emits significant amounts of carbon.
So we face a trade-off: economic growth and improving scientific performance on one side, and significant local and climate-level damage on the other. How should we evaluate this trade-off? How can we ensure that the benefits of widespread computing are widely and fairly shared? This talk explores these issues, and what we're doing at St Andrews Computer Science to achieve sustainable, lower-power, computing futures.
Simon Dobson is Professor of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy. He is interested in complex adaptive systems and sensing, and especially in building approaches, algorithms, and tools for data analysis.
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Professor Phillips O’Brien – Head of School of International Relations
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Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: Can Europe Defend Itself Without the USA?
Professor Phillips O’Brien is the Chair of Strategic Studies and Head of the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He has published widely on issues of conflict, politics, war and strategy in the 20th and 21st centuries. Amongst his books are: How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, FDR’s Chief of Staff, (Penguin/Random House 2015). He has also published multiple articles in major journals including Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic History, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and, Past and Present. In 2024 he will publish a new multi-archival study of grand-strategy making in World War II with Penguin/Random House, entitled: The Strategists: How Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt were Made by and Made War. He is now working on a book examining the War and Power in the modern world—which is scheduled for publication in 2025. He has also recently been appointed as a Senior Adviser (non-residential) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC.
Professor O’Brien has been particularly active as an analyst and commentator during this most recent phase of the Russo-Ukraine War. He has worked with scholars and analysts in Ukraine and much of the rest of Europe and across the Atlantic to try and digest some of the lessons of the war. His commentary has been published regularly in The Atlantic, The Times, The Spectator, The Telegraph and other major newspapers and journals, while he has made media appearances for outlets in more than 15 countries, including MSNBC, CNN, NPR, BBC, DW and L’Express. In research terms, he has been leading a project, part funded by the Office of Net Assessment (US DOD) trying to understand why the pre-war analysis of power and war was so fundamentally flawed, so that we do not make the same mistakes going forward when judging power and war in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Dr Margaret McCartney – School of Medicine - and Dr Chris van Tulleken
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Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6pm (note early start time)
Dr Margaret McCartney, Senior Clinical Lecturer in General Practice and award winning writer and broadcaster, from the University of St Andrews School of Medicine will spend the evening with academic, broadcaster and NHS physician, Dr Chris van Tulleken. They will discuss Dr McCartney's research into conflicts of interest in healthcare.
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Dr Mateja Peter - Senior Lecturer in International Relations
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Venue: Rathbones, 10 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PF
Time: 6.00pm to 8.00pm
Dr Mateja Peter is the Executive Director of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs and Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on the role of third-party interveners (states and international organisations) in contemporary peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction. Dr Peter acts as a Research Lead on the PeaceRep Global Fragmentation project, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
In this talk, Dr Peter will explore recent changes in approaches to managing violent conflicts and the increasing importance of transactionalism in contemporary peace processes. As the world becomes more fragmented, how is the peace field changing? Who are the new actors mediating conflicts? How are global powers – the US, Russia, and China – approaching peace agreements and negotiations? What does this mean for some of the most pressing conflicts and their transitions to peace? Where does this leave traditional liberal peacemakers, such as the United Nations? And is there still space for progressive realism advanced by the UK government?
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PhD Student Showcase
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Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Join alumni, parents and friends as we find out more about cutting-edge research taking place at St Andrews. PhD students are the lifeblood of the University – their research across all disciplines will benefit generations to come. This event gives you the opportunity to hear more about what some of our current PhD students are working on and how their important work will help us to make waves.
Please find below the titles of the talks that will be presented:
Maria Andrei — PhD Computer Science
Enhancing Climate Education with Virtual RealityKaren Katiyo — PhD International Relations
Constitutional Courts: Reconciling the Law, Politics, and ‘Spirit' after TransitionRuadhán Scrivener-Anderson — PhD Modern History
“Highland Chieftains”: Selection, Social Status and National Identity of Scottish Army Officers, c.1902-1918 -
Professor Cat Hobaiter - School of Psychology and Neuroscience
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Venue: Royal Overseas League, 6 Park Place, St James’s, London, SW1A 1LR
Time: 6.30pm
Title: Storytelling Apes
Professor Cat Hobaiter is a primatologist and Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where she leads the Wild Minds Lab. She has spent over 15 years working with wild African apes, with long-term field studies across Uganda and Guinea. Her research focuses on the evolution of communication and cognition in our closest living relatives.
In this talk, Professor Hobaiter explores the evolutionary mystery of human language. Decades of research with other species, from chimpanzees to crows, have shown that language is not needed to learn from each other, to organise where and when to forage, to learn cultural knowledge about tools and songs, to co-ordinate hunting, or navigate social politics.
Reflecting on her own experience living and working with a group of people with whom she shared almost no common language, Professor Hobaiter asks whether we’ve been looking in the wrong place.
Ten years ago, Anthropologist Polly Wiessner made the suggestion that fire was the fundamental driver of human social behaviour. While the day-to-day conversations of the forager people were about mundane practicalities and gossip, fireside conversations are different: and they are overwhelmingly used for telling stories.
At the end of the day - are we the storytelling ape?