Public Engagements

Presentations at academic conferences:

  • London Public Understanding of Science Seminar Series, LSE, 29th May 2024. 
  • University of Edinburgh Q-step Seminar Series, Jan 2020: The Evolution of Statistics in the Work of Karl Pearson (1857-1936) and R. A. Fisher (1890-1962) 
  • University of Glasgow Sociology Seminar Series, 30th Oct 2019: Two Centuries of Sociology and Statistics in Britain.
  • Royal Statistical Society Annual Conference, Sep 2018: What Can We Learn about the Teaching of Statistics from the Historical Relationship between Sociology and Statistics in Britain?
  • British Sociological Association Annual Conference, April 2018: What Impact did the Methodological Debates of the 70s have on British Sociology? The Revelation of the Peel (1968) and Wakeford (1979) Reports.
  • University of Edinburgh Q-step Seminar Series, June 2017: Sociology and Statistics in Britain, 1903-1979.
  • British Sociological Association Annual Conference, April 2017: British Sociology and Statistics – Historical Divides.
  • University of Edinburgh Annual New Directions Conference, April 2017: British Sociology and Statistics – Historical Divides.
  • University of Edinburgh Q-step Seminar Series, Nov 2015: Statistics and Social Science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) and the London Statistical Society, 1830s-1890s.
  • University of Cardiff Q-Step Postgraduate Inaugural Event, Oct 2015: An Historical Overview of the Relationship Between Sociology and Statistics in the UK, 1830s-1980s.
  • University of Edinburgh Annual New Directions Conference, April 2015: British Sociology and Statistics: Four Challenges.

Organisation of academic events:

History of Sociology Conference

Between April 2017 and April 2018, I organised a two-day conference on the history of British sociology, which was held in Edinburgh on 16th-17th April 2018. The conference covered a variety of historical themes from the Scottish Enlightenment to the present and brought together distinguished scholars from the UK, USA and France in a range of fields, including sociology, history and statistics. The papers presented at the conference were published in Panayotova, P. (ed). 2019. The History of Sociology in Britain: New Research and Revaluation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19929-6

Public outreach:

  • In May 2022 and May 2023, I organised the stream Our Society in the Edinburgh Pint of Science festival. I also presented my research with talks on Why Does Modern Science Require Popularisation? (2022) and Scientific Values and the Value of Science (2023). I’m taking part in the organisation of the festival again in 2024.
  • In January 2022, I was invited to give a radio talk as part of a series organised by the popular science magazine Bulgarian Science. My talk was entitled Science Communication Through the Centuries and is available on Spotify.