Prof. Armand Leroi

Prof. Armand Leroi was the writer and presenter of Human Mutants, a major three-part documentary series about human deformity which was broadcast on Channel 4 in June 2004. He also wrote and presented a two part series What Makes Us Human which was transmitted on C4 in August 2006. In December 2004 his book, Mutants, was the winner of the Guardian First Book Award.

Armand Marie Leroi was born on 16 July 1964 in Wellington, New Zealand. A Dutch citizen, his youth was spent in New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. He was awarded a Bsc. by Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada in 1989, and a PhD by the University of California in 1993.

His doctoral work was supervised by Michael Rose and concerned the genetics of ageing in fruit flies. This was followed by postdoctoral work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, in Scott Emmons's laboratory. Here he began to work on growth in the nematode worm and its Relatives. In 1996 he was appointed Lecturer at Imperial College London and in 2001, Reader in Evolutionary Developmental Biology.

Armand is an experienced after dinner speaker and lecturer.