The Royal Observatory hosted this Presenter Network Conference in December 2025. The one-day event included lectures and workshops run by members of the network.
Read more about the 2026 Presenter Network Conference taking place on Tuesday 22 September here.
Keynote Speaker 2025: Becky Holmes
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Helping you reach your next level in presenting on stage and to camera
Becky Holmes is a confidence-on-camera and personal presence coach, speaker and trainer, helping people communicate with clarity, confidence and authenticity - whether they’re stepping onto a stage or speaking straight to camera.
With more than 20 years’ experience performing and presenting science to live audiences, and eight years coaching individuals to find their presence, Becky has presented to more than 100,000 people at festivals and in schools - which means she’s got all the tricks to keep content compelling and audiences hooked.
Known for her warmth, humour and ability to draw people out of their shell, Becky brings infectious energy to every session. Her workshops and one-to-ones leave participants feeling more confident, more expressive and genuinely excited to take the mic.
She also holds a Gold Medal in Public Speaking from LAMDA and blends performance know-how with personal development tools to support a whole-person approach to engaging any audience.
Meet the Storytelling Hour speakers 2025
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Katherine Gazzard
Katherine Gazzard is Curator of Art (Post-1800) at Royal Museums Greenwich. Through her research and curatorial work, she explores the interconnections between British art and the maritime world. She has previously taught art history and museum and gallery studies at the University of East Anglia, where she obtained her PhD in 2019. Her thesis explored the representation of naval officers in eighteenth-century British portraiture. She is the author of The Art of Naval Portraiture, published in March 2024, and regularly delivers lectures, gallery talks and professional presentations. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4, History Hit and elsewhere talking about a variety of subjects, from Napoleonic prisoner-of-war escapes to the design of sailors' hats.
Find Katherine Gazzard:
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Mariano Gilmore
Mariano Gilmore is the head of Education at the National Museum of Fine Arts Association. Four words can be used to describe him: creative, bold, passionate and straightforward.
Gilmore is an art historian and educator from Buenos Aires, trained at USAL in art history & cultural management with postgraduate studies in Educational Sciences and Social Communication. He has taught Latin American art and held key roles in institutions such as Fundación PROA and the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires. Selected for international fellowships at Fundación TyPA, Tate Modern, the Getty Foundation, and the MET, he later was selected as a Nesta/BID program trainer. He contributed to a Cannes Lions–winning project, several international conferences such as Museums Next, Museum ID and is Tedx Speaker.
Find Mariano Gilmore:
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Hannah Ford Tomlinson
Hannah is an equity, diversity and inclusion and evaluation consultant, specialising in engaging and advocating for neurodivergent audiences. With a Physics background and nearly a decade of STEM education experience, they are deeply passionate about STEM engagement that is accessible and genuinely inclusive. Hannah is also a freelance science communicator, presenter, and content developer, and has worked with BBC Bitesize and Blue Peter. They currently work as Communities & Partnerships Programme Manager for the Lightyear Foundation.
Find Hannah Ford Tomlinson: LinkedIn
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King Simpson
King Simpson is a BAFTA-nominated creative writer and storyteller with lived experience in the care system. He uses narrative to create meaningful, human-centred content that brings overlooked voices to the forefront. He is considerably passionate about visual narratives that inspire empathy and spark social change — particularly around themes like identity, resilience, and belonging. His mission is to influence healing, promote an understanding of broken-attachments and use this knowledge to turn trauma into self-empowerment.
Find King Simpson: LinkedIn
Meet the Turbo Talk speakers 2025
Jerry Stone
Jerry Stone is a Freelance Space Presenter, having spoken on astronomy and space exploration for over 55 years. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and has given more presentations there than anyone else. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and holds positions in several other space organisations. He is a broadcaster and author and is widely known as an expert on space exploration, and his work is recognised by NASA.
Dr Sarah Bearchell
Dr Sarah Bearchell is an award-winning Freelance Science Writer and Presenter based in Oxfordshire. She prides herself on creating inclusive science activities which engage and delight children and family audiences.
Talk Creating Delight
Connecting with your audience is a powerful thing. I’ll be sharing some of the methods I use to engage with my audience and create delight with the simplest of activities.
Dr Russell Arnott
Dr Russell Arnott is a science presenter and communications trainer who specialises in helping audiences connect with science and the environment. Through his work with Incredible Oceans CIC, he helps organisations and researchers rethink how they interact with non-self-selecting groups, blending his hands-on presenting experience with practical training sessions.
Talk Reaching Outside the Bubble: Communicating to Values
We say we want audiences to ‘engage’, yet most of our effort goes into helping them understand the science rather than feel anything about it. This short session explores how audience values shape connections and how recognising these can help presenters reach beyond self-selecting audiences, engaging with people whose motivations may differ from our own.
Dorian Knight
Dorian Knight has an MA in Medieval and Viking Studies from the University of Iceland and a further postgraduate degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. He has worked within the museum sector for over 10 years across London and England. His roles have included a curatorial traineeship at the Charleston Trust researching, and cataloguing a 20th century Bloomsbury Group art archive, supporting the Horniman Museum in their anthropology redisplay and delivering heritage capacity building programmes in local authorities. In his current job, Dorian manages an astronomy heritage public programme as part of the Royal Observatory redevelopment.
Joshua Darkwa
My name is Joshua; I am a Planetarium Presenter and a Science Explainer for Royal Museums Greenwich. I am also the Talk Secretary for the Hampstead Scientific Society.
I learnt first-hand that storytelling is a way of educating generations and is an effective way of presenting. Stories are all about commanding emotions and I really enjoy the laughter! I present with an intention to engage and allow those listening to feel as if they don't have to listen at all! To simply learn, laugh and immerse themselves in my show is my method of presenting.
Header image: Space Jungle by Soumyadeep Mukherjee, shortlisted in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022