Lucy Hawking

Lucy Hawking
Lucy Hawking presenting her father Stephen Hawking at the lecture for NASA's 50th anniversary
Born	Catherine Lucy Hawking (1970-11-02) 2 November 1970 England
Alma mater	Oxford University
Spouse(s)	Alex Mackenzie Smith (m. 1998; div. 2004)
Children	William (b. 1997)
Parent(s)	Jane Wilde Hawking Stephen Hawking

Catherine Lucy Hawking, FRSA (born 2 November 1970)^[1] is an English journalist and novelist.^[2] She is the daughter of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and writer Jane Wilde Hawking. She lives in London.^[3] She collaborates with her father on projects such as books designed to explain complex science to young readers through the background of adventure travels.

She is a trustee of the Autism Research Trust.^[4]

Education and career

She is one of Professor Stephen Hawking’s three children. Her mother is Jane Wilde Hawking.

Hawking studied French and Russian at the University of Oxford.^[5]

She worked as a journalist.^[6] She has written for New York magazine, the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Times, the London Evening Standard,^[7] and The Guardian.^[8] She has also worked as a radio journalist.^[3]

Hawking has written two novels: Jaded (2004) and Run for Your Life (2005) (also published as The Accidental Marathon).

In 2007 she published George's Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure story about a small boy called George who finds a way to slip through a computer generated portal and travel around the solar system. Written with her father, Stephen Hawking, and his former Ph.D. student, Christophe Galfard, it has been translated into 38 languages and published in 43 countries. George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, a look across the universe for signs of life, followed in 2009. Their third children's story, titled George and the Big Bang, is about "What happened at the Big Bang?" and was released in 2011.^[9] Their most recent story in the 'George' series is titled George and the Unbreakable Code, and was published in 2014

In April 2008, Hawking participated in NASA’s 50th birthday lecture series, contributing a talk on children and science education. Based on her experiences in touring worldwide with George's Secret Key, giving talks for children on physics and astronomy, the lecture highlighted the need to engage children in science at an early age.

Hawking won the Sapio Prize for popularizing science, which was awarded in Rome in October 2008. She is vice president of the National Star College, an institution dedicated to allowing people with disabilities to realize their potential through personalized learning, transition and lifestyle services,^[10] a foundation which provides care and education for young adults with complex and multiple disabilities. Her father has inspired many of the children and have presented for many of these disabled adolescents.

In 2010, Arizona State University appointed Hawking writer-in-residence of its 2011 Origins Project.^[11]

From 30 September 2013 to 30 October 2013, Hawking spoke at the BrainSTEM: Your Future is Now festival at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.^[12]

Personal life

Lucy Hawking was married to Alex Mackenzie Smith in 1998,^[13] but the couple divorced in 2004.^[14] She has a son. Diagnosed with autism, he has been an inspiration to her in her support for people on the autistic spectrum.^[8]

Bibliography

• Jaded, 2005. ISBN 0452285836
• Run for Your Life, 2006, ISBN 0452285844

Children's fiction

These are co-written with her father Stephen.

• George's Secret Key to the Universe, (Random House, 2007) ISBN 978-0-385-61270-8
• George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2009) ISBN 978-1-4169-8671-3
• George and the Big Bang, (Doubleday, 2011) ISBN 978-0-385-61191-6
• George and the Unbreakable Code, (Doubleday, 2014) ISBN 978-0-857-53325-8

References