Carolin Susan Crawford is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 communicator of science

Science communication

Science communication generally refers to public media aiming to talk about science with non-scientists. This often involves professional scientists but has evolved into a professional field in its own right...

, astrophysicist researcher, lecturer and academic based at the Institute of Astronomy

Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

The Institute of Astronomy is the largest of the three astronomy departments in the University of Cambridge, and one of the largest astronomy sites in the UK...

 and Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

.

Biography

Crawford received a BA Hons in Mathematics Newnham College, Cambridge

Newnham College, Cambridge

Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...

 in 1985. In 1988 she received her PhD from Newnham College and the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. She progressed through a series of postdoctoral and research fellowships at Balliol College, Oxford

Balliol College, Oxford

Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....

, the Institute of Astronomy, Trinity Hall

Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...

 and Newnham College, University of Cambridge. From 1996 to 2007 she was a Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 Research Fellow.

In 2004 she was appointed as a Fellow and College Lecturer at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she is now also the undergraduate Admissions Tutor for the Physical Science

Physical science

Physical science is an encompassing term for the branches of natural science and science that study non-living systems, in contrast to the life sciences...

s. She currently holds this position in conjunction with her role as Outreach Officer at the Institute of Astronomy, which she first took on in 2005.

In 2011 she was appointed Professor of Astronomy

Gresham Professor of Astronomy

The Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1596 / 7, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to eight and in addition the college now has visiting professors.The...

 at Gresham College

Gresham College

Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...

, a position in which she will deliver free public lectures within the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

.

Academic interests

As stated on her page on the Emmanuel College website, Crawford’s “primary research interests are in combining X-ray

X-ray astronomy

X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy which deals with the study of X-ray observation and detection from astronomical objects. X-radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to detect X-rays must be taken to high altitude by balloons, sounding rockets, and...

, optical and near-infrared observations to study the physical processes occurring around massive galaxies at the core of clusters of galaxies

Galaxy groups and clusters

Galaxy groups and clusters are the largest known gravitationally bound objects to have arisen thus far in the process of cosmic structure formation. They form the densest part of the large scale structure of the universe...

. In particular, she observes the complex interplay between the hot intra-cluster medium, filaments of warm ionized gas, cold molecular clouds, star formation

Star formation

Star formation is the process by which dense parts of molecular clouds collapse into a ball of plasma to form a star. As a branch of astronomy star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds as precursors to the star formation process and the study of young...

 and the radio plasma flowing out from the central supermassive black hole

Supermassive black hole

A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, in the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.Supermassive black holes have...

.”

Outreach and Awards

Crawford delivers public lectures, talks, workshops and debates throughout the UK and beyond on wide range of topics within astronomy. She regularly delivers such science outreach presentations to over 4,000 people annually.
She is a regular in broadcast media, with numerous appearances on programmes such as In Our Time

In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)

In Our Time is a live BBC radio discussion series exploring the history of ideas, presented by Melvyn Bragg since 15 October 1998.. It is one of BBC radio's most successful discussion programmes, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time"...

 and Home Planet on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 alone.

In 2009 Crawford was recognized for her outstanding abilities at science communication by a Women of Outstanding Achievement Award by the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, presented for “communication of science with a contribution to society.”