She was awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge with a dissertation on Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse (subsequently published by Cambridge University Press). Fluent in eight languages (including Greek and Latin), she studied for an MA in the Literary Theory of Translation with Professor Donald Davie at the University of Essex. She graduated with upper second-class honours. For two years, she took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos before, in her final year and under the influence of Raymond Williams, she read English. īronowski, who died in 1974 and is best remembered for his 13-part television series, The Ascent of Man (1973), was the subject of Jardine's Conway Memorial Lecture, 'Things I Never Knew About My Father', delivered at the Conway Hall Ethical Society on 26 June 2014.Īn avid reader with an interest in history from a very young age, Jardine won a mathematics scholarship to Cheltenham Ladies' College and later attended Newnham College, Cambridge, and the University of Essex. Jardine was born on 12 April 1944 in Oxford, the eldest of four daughters of mathematician and polymath, Jacob Bronowski, and the sculptor, Rita Coblentz. On 1 September 2012, she relocated with her research centre and staff to University College London (UCL) to become founding director of its Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities. Jardine was a Member of Council of the Royal Institution, until 2009.

From 2008 to January 2014 she was Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

Lisa Anne Jardine CBE HonFRS FRHistS (née Bronowski 12 April 1944 – 25 October 2015) was a British historian of the early modern period.įrom 1990 to 2011, she was Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary University of London. Recorded December 2008 from the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time

Going Dutch by Lisa Jardine