Festival Interview: Dr Dan Lloyd, the brain behind the festival’s science programme

A keen musician and scientific academic at the University of Kent, Dan Lloyd has been instrumental in developing a strong science strand for the festival. We catch up with Dan to learn more about his role at the School of Biosciences and his interest in getting the general public to look at arts through a scientific lens. I’m an oboist, so music has always been part of my life, as well as science. I studied music at school. I was considering whether to go to music college or whether to go to university to study science. But while I’m a scientist, I’ve always appreciated the arts as something which is important to people’s lives. From a professional perspective, I feel it’s important for scientists to articulate what they do, particularly to non-specialists. Science has many positive influences on society, but scientists also need to engage with communities on issues that might concern them. The arts offers many opportunities to their own routes for those conversations to take place. This is something the festival does well through its science strand and I’m delighted that it offers an opportunity to explore science within an international and artistic context. One of the best things for me professionally is that I programme it with colleagues from the festival but also with students I teach. The students do research about science events taking place across the country and which we then consider inviting to the festival. There are some amazing events – I’m so glad we can bring them to Canterbury.

Dan Lloyd