FRY
Hannah

• 1. Career
• 1.1. Radio and television

Hannah Fry is a British mathematician, author, and radio and television presenter. She is Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

Her work has included studies the patterns of human behaviour, such as interpersonal relationships and dating, and how mathematics can apply to them. Fry delivered the 2019 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, and has presented several programmes for the BBC, including The Secret Genius Of Modern Life.

Career

Fry was appointed as a lecturer at University College London in 2012. At the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, following a number of years as a senior lecturer and then associate professor, she was appointed professor in the Mathematics of Cities, in 2021.

Radio and television

Fry regularly appears on BBC Radio 4 in the UK, including in Computing Britain (2015, 12 episodes) and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (with Adam Rutherford), which aired its 21st series in 2023.

Fry has presented several BBC television programmes. In 2015, she presented a BBC Four film biography of Ada Lovelace. In 2016, she co-presented Trainspotting Live with Peter Snow, a three-part series about trains and trainspotting, for the same channel. In the BBC Two series City in the Sky Fry studied the logistics of aviation. She also hosted The Joy of Data on BBC Four, which examines the history and human impact of data. A further credit for 2016 was her co-hosting an episode of the BBC Two Horizon series with Dr Xand van Tulleken, titled How to Find Love Online. In 2017, Fry presented an episode of Horizon titled 10 Things You Need to Know About the Future.

In 2018, Fry presented Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic, about the possible impact of a flu pandemic, in which she said " ... we are about to simulate the outbreak of a fatal contagion throughout the UK. ... if I can succeed this will save lives when, not if, a real pandemic hits". The programme used Haslemere, Surrey as the site of the first simulated infection, and coincidentally in February 2020 the town saw the first recorded case of a person contracting COVID-19 from within the UK.

In the same year she presented Size Matters, on BBC Four, a two-part series, and Magic Numbers, on BBC Four, a three-part series which explored mathematical concepts. She hosted a one-off 90-minute special of the BBC science programme Tomorrow's World alongside four presenters from the show's original run: Maggie Philbin, Howard Stableford, Judith Hann and Peter Snow.

In 2019, Fry presented a BBC Four programme titled A Day in the Life of Earth which explored how Earth changes in a single day and how these daily changes are essential to human existence. Fry also co-presented a Horizon episode titled The Honest Supermarket, which covered a range of issues, including expiry dates and their impact on food waste, microplastics in the human food supply and the impact food consumption has on the environment. She presented the 2019 edition of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled Secrets and lies, on the hidden numbers, rules and patterns that control daily lives; the three lectures were broadcast on BBC Four.

In 2020, Fry co-presented both The Great British Intelligence Test and Coronavirus Special – Part 2 with Michael Mosley on BBC Two. She has presented further programmes for the BBC explaining the mathematics behind COVID-19 and other pandemics.

Since 2020, Fry has been the host of the podcast created for the artificial intelligence company, DeepMind.

In 2021, Fry was the guest interviewee on The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4.

In 2022, Fry was twice a panellist on Have I Got News For You, with the episodes first airing on 15 April 2022 and 28 October 2022 on BBC One. She has also presented the show on 24 November 2023.

In July 2022, she presented the BBC Two documentary Unvaccinated, in which she investigated why a portion of the British population remained unvaccinated against COVID-19. Reviewing in the Telegraph, Anita Singh described the show as patronising commenting that Fry's attempt to explain statistics using "jelly-bean roulette" treated the unvaccinated people who chose to appear in the show like "six-year-olds".

Beginning 10 November 2022, Fry presented a six-part series on BBC Two, The Secret Genius Of Modern Life, in which she investigates topics such as how credit cards came into being, their manufacture and how they work, and how we use apps to order takeaway deliveries. The BBC commissioned a second six-part series, again presented by Fry and first broadcast in November 2023. Episodes include one on the secrets of producing the British passport, detailing the document's security features; she illustrated this with a passport produced for her, which evidenced her date and place of birth.

She presented The Future With Hannah Fry on Bloomberg Originals in March 2023.

In July 2023, BBC Four re-showed Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths.

In September 2023, BBC Radio Four started to broadcast Uncharted with Hannah Fry, a series of 15 minute documentaries about graphs.