KEYNOTE ADDRESS: The History of Radio

Abstract: This talk will explore developments in the history, science, technology, and licensing of radio amateur communities from the early 1900s through to the present day, exploring how individuals and communities contributed to “citizen science” long before the term entered popular usage in the 1990s. I will also explore how these community-led developments can inspire the next generation’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), citizen science, and amateur radio.

 

Bio: Dr Elizabeth Bruton is Curator of Technology and Engineering at the Science Museum, London, specializing in the history of communications. Prominent aspects of this role include curator of “Top Secret: From ciphers to cyber security” exhibition, which explored over a century’s worth of communications intelligence through hand-written documents, declassified files and previously unseen artefacts from the Science Museum Group's and GCHQ’s historic collections, and serving as co-Investigator on the “Electrifying Women: Understanding the Long History of Women in Engineering”, a nine-month Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project with Professor Graeme Gooday at the University of Leeds. Dr Bruton holds three degrees: a BAI in Computer Engineering from Trinity College, Dublin (2004); an MSc in history of science from the University of Oxford (2005) with a dissertation on “Marconi Wireless Telegraphy in the British Army during World War One”; and an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award PhD with BT Archives and IET Archives at the University of Leeds on “Beyond Marconi: the roles of the Admiralty, the Post Office, and the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the invention and development of wireless communication up to 1908” (2013). Last and definitely not least, Dr Bruton has been non-licensed member of Oxford & District Amateur Radio Society since 2014 and their web manager since 2015.