Yesterday we welcomed FHS parent Dr Christopher Hunter for A Brief Slice of Time – Working with Professor Hawking, a fascinating lecture on his inspirational career to date.

Studying maths and physics in Canada, Christopher looked for oil in seismographs at Shell in Calgary, etched silicon chips at Bell-Northern Research in Ottawa, analysed particle tracks at CERN in Geneva, investigated proton collisions at the TRIMUF cyclotron in Vancouver and tested infrared detectors at the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope on the Big Island.

He then moved to Cambridge where he studied his PhD under the supervision of Professor Stephen Hawking, and continued to work with him on joint papers on the thermodynamics of Taub-NUT and related spacetimes. Yet the siren song of finance lured Christopher into the City where he has spent the last 20 years working at investment banks and hedge funds in roles such as quantitative researcher, derivatives trader, portfolio manager and chief risk officer.

While working he still found time to lecture and taught Financial Maths courses at KCL and Oxford. He now enjoys helping his daughters with their physics homework – if only they would let him!

Thank you to Christopher for his time and for such an excellent lecture to kick off an excellent lineup of Sixth Form speakers for this academic year.