Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley's books have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages and won several awards. His books include The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything and How Innovation Works. Viral: the search for the origin of covid-19, co-authored with Alina Chan, was published in 2021, and Birds, Sex and Beauty: The extraordinary implications of Charles Darwin’s strangest idea was published in 2025.

He sat in the House of Lords between 2013 and 2021 and served on the science and technology select committee and the artificial intelligence select committee. He was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times 2013-2018. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Northumberland.