# Brian J. Ford

Brian J. Ford HonFLS HonFRMS (born on May 13, 1939 in Corsham, Wiltshire) is an independent research biologist, author, and lecturer, who publishes on scientific issues for the general public. He has also been a television personality for more than 40 years. Ford is an international authority on the microscope. Throughout his career, Ford has been associated with many academic bodies. He was elected a Fellow of Cardiff University in 1986, was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester, and has been awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society and of the Linnean Society of London. In America, he was awarded the inaugural Köhler Medal and was recently recipient of the Ernst Abbe medal awarded by the New York Microscopical Society. In 2004 he was awarded a personal fellowship from NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. During those three years he delivered 150 lectures in scores of countries, meeting 10,000 people in over 350 universities around the world.

## Education

Ford attended the King's School, Peterborough, and then Cardiff University to study botany and zoology between 1959 and 1961, leaving before graduating to set up his own multi-disciplinary laboratory.

## Career and positions
### Universities

* Honorary fellow of Cardiff University
* Former dining member of Gonville and Caius College University of Cambridge
* Honorary member of Keynes College, University of Kent
* President Emeritus of Cambridge Society for the Application of Research
* Former Fellow at the Open University
* Formerly Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester
* President (and now President Emeritus) of University of Cambridge Society for the Application of Research

### Learned Societies

* Fellow of the Linnean Society - serving as a member of their council as their Zoological Secretary and is their honorary surveyor of scientific instruments
* Fellow of the Institute of Biology - a former member of their council and chairman of their history network (He also edited: Institute of Biology: The First Fifty Years which is devoted to the history of this Institute.)
* Life fellow of Cambridge Philosophical Society
* Fellowship by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and Art in 2004
* Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society - appointed in February 2017, having been elected as an ordinary fellow in 1962

### Other positions

He was the first British President of the European Union of Science Journalists' Associations, founding Chairman of the Science and Technology Authors Committee at the Society of Authors, and the president of the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR) of Cambridge University. Ford has been a member of Mensa and was a director of British Mensa from 1993–1997, resigning a few months after being elected for a second term. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1962.

## 2012 aquatic dinosaur hypothesis

In the April 2012 issue of Laboratory News, Ford put forward the idea that all large dinosaurs were aquatic, arguing that they were too large and heavy to be land animals.
Although evidence has been presented for some dinosaurs like spinosaurids being partially aquatic, reaction to Ford's theory that the majority of dinosaurs being largely aquatic have been highly, if not universally negative, with other experts in the fields of paleontology and paleobiology having continuously disproven or refuted Ford's claims, with some suggesting Ford's hypotheses could be relegated as fringe theories. Several paleontologists, such as Darren Naish, have directly countered Ford in his arguments using documented evidence of dinosaurs being terrestrial to back their rebuttals to his work.