People

Pat Cadigan - President

Renowned SFF author Pat Cadigan is the author of myriad of novels and short stories, and considered a formative voice within cyberpunk in particular. Long-serving Vice President of the BSFA, Pat became our President in 2020.

Lecturer at Coventry University. He worked on the computer games Elite Dangerous (2014), Chaos Reborn (2016) and Phoenix Point (2019), developing world backgrounds, plot and fiction. He has written short stories, novels and music. His new science fiction novel, Fearless came out in September 2020.

Farah Mendlesohn - Treasurer

Farah has lost track of all the things Farah has done, but most recently they included securing a PGDip in Charity Accounting. Although the BSFA is not a charity, this seemed a reasonable qualification for taking on the role of Treasurer.

Luke Nicklin - Membership Officer

After becoming a dad, Luke returned to the UK after four years in Japan to continue teaching English as a foreign language and pursue writing. Luke loves stories from any medium, board games, puzzles/mysteries, painting miniatures and making music. 

Francis Gene-Rowe is an sf scholar who works on Philip K. Dick, William Blake, Ursula K. Le Guin, tabletop gaming, ecocriticism, sf poetry and goblin futures. He codirects the London Science Fiction Research Community and is one of the Science Fiction Research Association's UK Representatives. He also serves on the editorial board of Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy's A New Canon series. In his spare time he plays, writes and sometimes designs tabletop games.

Yen Ooi is a writer-researcher whose works explore cultural storytelling and its effects on identity in science fiction. Yen is the author of the game Road to Guangdong, the novel Sun: Queens of Earth, and A Suspicious Collection of Shorrt Stories and Poetry, along with various articles and papers. Yen is also a lecturer, mentor, and consultant.

Ali Baker - Diversity Officer

Ali  Baker is a lecturer in Early Childhood Studies and Primary Education at University of East London, and a researcher writing working on class children in children’s fantasy fiction. She has a learning disability (dyspraxia) and is bisexual. She has volunteered at many SFF cons and was co-chair of programme at Ytterbium (Eastercon 2019) and will repeat that role at Reclamation (Eastercon 2022).

Terry Jackman - Writing Groups Officer

Terry is a SFF fiction writer, who co-ordinates the Orbit groups, a series of online writing groups open to all BSFA members. 

Polina Levontin - Vector Editor-in-Chief

Polina has co-edited Vector, the critical journal of the BSFA, since 2018. She is also a science researcher in environmental policy, with particular interests in communicating risk and improving decision-making in complex multi-stakeholder situations.

Dev Agarwal - Focus Editor

Dev is a science fiction and fantasy writer, living in London. He is editor of Focus and also contributes to the other BSFA publications, Vector and The BSFA Review.