Professor Williams is a science journalist and broadcaster who presents The Science Show and Ockham’s Razor on Radio National.
Although he graduated with a Bachelor of Science (honours) in England, he admits to spending as much time acting as studying. Early in his career he made guest appearances in The Goodies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Doctor Who, and stood in for Tom Jones for four months in his TV series.
He has conducted countless interviews with scientists on ABC TV on programs such as Quantum and Catalyst, narrated the Nature of Australia series and appeared in World Safari with David Attenborough. Outside the ABC, Professor Williams has served in various capacities, including president of the Australian Museum Trust, chairman of the Commission for the Future, and president of the Australian Science Communicators. In 1987, he was proclaimed a National Living Treasure.
In 1993, he was the first journalist elected as a Fellow Member of the Australian Academy of Science. He was appointed AM in the 1988 Australian Bicentenary honours list and in the same year received honorary doctorates in science from the Universities of Sydney, Macquarie and Deakin. The ANU awarded him a doctorate of law, and he is a visiting professor at the University of NSW and an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland.
A Reuters fellowship at Oxford University allowed him time to write his autobiography, And Now for Something Completely Different. He was a visiting fellow at Balliol College Oxford in 1995-96.
Professor Williams has written more than 10 books, the latest being a novel, 2007: a true story waiting to happen.
