Annual Engineering Schools Lecture: Anthroengineering

Calling all STEM students from GCSE to A Level to university! Welcome to our Annual Engineering Schools Lecture, highlighting the amazing research that takes place here. Delivering the 2025 lecture is Dr Michael Berthaume, who will explore his work combining engineering with anthropology.

Talk description
As society faces new problems, we need new skills and ways of thinkings to tackle these. In this lecture, Dr Michael Berthaume will explore how we can combine the worlds of engineering and anthropology to help advance our understanding of human evolution, and design novel technologies to improve people’s lives.

Traditionally scientists have worked in their separate areas, but as the problems we need to tackle become ever more complex, the boundaries between disciplines become fuzzy and break down. Michael will unpack the new field of anthroengineering he has pioneered, which is helping us better understand the variation we see in humans today, and what this means for how our bodies work and move.

This knowledge can then be used to improve human lives in a range of ways, with Michael’s team focussing on how to better provide culturally relevant and sustainable prosthetics to low and middle income countries. Here are King’s our Engineering Department is filled with a diverse group of scientists, working on a range of interesting projects just like this, which straddle different scientific topics, and aim to help shape the world for the better.

About the Speaker

Dr Michael Berthaume is a Reader in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London. Before joining King’s, he was at London South Bank University where his administrative duties included being Deputy Head of the Division, in charge of Research and Enterprise. He is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), member of the Exceed Research Network (ERN), and an executive member of the inaugural UK Young Academy, which is supported by the Royal Society and other senior academies within the UK.

Dr Berthaume is an “anthroengineer” with degrees (UMass, Amherst) and postdoctoral experience (University of Hull, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Durham University, and Imperial College London) in both anthropology and engineering. He truly believes transdisciplinarity is the future, providing a holistic view of problems and challenges, enabling them to be addressed and solved in new, novel manners.

Additional information

This event is aimed at those aged 16+. Younger attendees are welcome, but please note that attendees under the age of 14 must be accompanied by a responsible adult. For school groups, tickets are limited to 20 students per booking, to ensure a larger number of schools can attend. If you are aged 14–18 and booking for yourself, please check with a parent or guardian before booking your place.

Registration for this event will take place in reception in the main Strand Building entrance. This is on the Strand, the opposite side of St Mary Le Strand Church from Bush House. Refreshments will be served in the Engineering Quad Labs and the Lecture will take place in the Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre.

This event is organised by the Department of Engineering at King’s College London, together with the Faculty Outreach Team. If you have any questions or would like any further details, please email nmes-outreach@kcl.ac.uk.