Professor Andrew Parker was born in England in 1967 and moved to Australia in 1990 where he spent ten years studying marine biology and physics. On returning to the UK as a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Oxford University in 1999 he worked on colour, vision, biomimetics and evolution. In 2000, based on his ‘Light Switch Theory’ for the cause of the Big Bang in evolution, he was selected as one of the top eight scientists in the UK as a ‘Scientist for the New Century’ by The Royal Institution (London). Today he works at Green College (University of Oxford). He is also Research Leader at The Natural History Museum, London and a Professor at the University of Sydney.

His scientific research centres on the evolution of vision and on biomimetics – extracting good design from nature. He has copied the natural nanotechnology behind the metallic-like wings of butterflies and iridescence of hummingbirds to produce commercial products such as security devices (that can’t be copied) to replace holograms in credit cards and non-reflective surfaces for solar panels (providing a 10% increase in energy capture). Today he is commissioned by international car manufacturers and cosmetic companies, such as Yves Saint Laurent.

Professor Andrew Parker is the author of In the Blink of an Eye and Seven Deadly Colours (published by Simon & Schuster in the UK and Perseus in the US), and regularly speaks at literary and arts festivals as well as scientific institutions. In 2005 he gave the annual Hewlett Packard lecture on evolution and the prestigious Stanford University annual physics lecture on colour in nature. Andrew Parker is consulted by leading military figures in the US regarding the use of his theories in defence programmes, a project which at its outset made front page news in The Guardian newspaper.

Titles by Professor Andrew Parker

The Genesis Enigma

Click here to visit Professor Andrew Parker's website

Professor Andrew Parker