Professor Laurie Taylor is visiting professor in the department of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Professor Laurie Taylor is visiting professor in the department of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London.

He was recently made a Fellow of Birkbeck College and also holds visiting professorships at the London Institute and Westminster University. The Universities of Leicester, Nottingham and Central England have awarded him honorary doctorates. His contributions to social science were recognised in 2003 by his election to the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. His contribution to business development was recognised last year by his appointment as an ambassador for Investors in People.

Before entering academic life, he had eight years industrial and sales experience. Professor Taylor worked as a librarian in Liverpool, taught in a London comprehensive school, and was a professional actor with Joan Littlewood's famous Theatre Workshop Company at Stratford East. He is the author of fourteen books on motivation, change, communication, and personal identity, and is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, The Independent, and The Times. His weekly satirical column on university life has been appearing in the Times Higher Education Supplement for the last twenty years. His most recent book (written with his son, Matthew) was called What Are Children For? .

For the past 25 years he has been heard on BBC Radio 4 in such programmes as Stop the Week, The Radio Programme, News Quiz, Speaking as an Expert, Afternoon Shift, and Room for Improvement. He can currently be heard every Wednesday afternoon on Radio 4 presenting Thinking Allowed, a programme devoted to society and social change. He has made several major television documentaries on such topics as crime, drinking behaviour, and the purpose of education.

His most recent films for Channel 4 were a major one-hour film on celebrity, broadcast in December 2003, and a highly acclaimed one-hour documentary on death and dying (On Pain of Death) broadcast in July 2005.

In the last 12 years he has addressed over five hundred major national and international companies on such topics as change, motivation, teamwork, new technology, risk, and communication.