Alok also hosted a live science podcast at the Royal Institution, Natural History Museum and the Science Museum in London. In 2012, his podcast Science Weekly won the Sony Gold award for best internet programme. It’s the Guardian’s second most downloaded podcast.

Alok has reported on some of the most groundbreaking international science headlines and has interviewed hundreds of the world’s leading experts in the field.

He has floated aboard a zero-gravity flight with the European Space Agency, had his genes sequenced, been a scientific guinea-pig to test the effects of the Atkins diet, learned how to Lindy-Hop, hung out with daredevil botanists in the mountains of Lebanon, and reported from location in Cape Canaveral as the space shuttle took off on its final mission.

Alok seen below with science colleagues on Dara O Briain’s Science Club alongside another Great British Speaking talent scientist, Mark Miodownik 

In 2008, Alok was named ‘European Science Writer of the Year’ and was shortlisted for ‘feature writer of the year’ by the Association for British Science Writers.

Over more than a decade as a science journalist, Alok has interviewed hundreds of the world’s leading scientists, thinkers and authors, including Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, David Nutt, Rebecca Skloot, Steven Pinker, E.O Wilson, Ian McEwan, Dava Sobel, Andre Geim, Susie Orbach, John Sulston, Paul Nurse and David Eagleman. He has also hosted live podcast shows, in front of an audience, at the Royal Institution, Natural History Museum and the Science Museum in London.

He is the author of three books The Water Book, The Doomsday Handbook: 50 Ways to the End of the World and How To Live Forever And 34 Other Really Interesting Uses for Science.