Dr Hiranya Peiris on Newsnight (credit: BBC Newsnight)
Professor David Price, Vice-Provost for Research at UCL, has written an open letter to Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, to raise concerns about an article commenting on the race and gender of UCL academics appearing on Newsnight. The contents of this letter are reproduced in full below. Dear Mr Dacre, I am writing to express my deep disappointment in the insinuation in your newspaper that Dr Hiranya Peiris was selected to discuss the 'Big Bang' breakthrough on Newsnight for anything other than her expertise. In Ephraim Hardcastle's column on 19th March, he asserts that Dr Peiris and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock were selected based on gender and birthplace because 'Newsnight's Guardian-trained editor, Ian Katz, is keen on diversity.' The implication that anything outside of her academic record qualifies Dr Peiris to discuss the results of the BICEP2 study is profoundly insulting. She is a world-leading expert on the study of the Cosmic Microwave Background, with degrees from Cambridge and Princeton, so is one of the best-placed people in the world to discuss the finding. Dr Aderin-Pocock is a highly-qualified scientist and engineer with an exceptional talent for communicating complex scientific concepts in an accessible way. I deeply pity the sort of person who can watch a report about ground-breaking news on the origins of the universe and everything in it, and see only the gender and skin colour of the panellists.
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