Lucy Hawking

Lucy Hawking presenting her father Stephen Hawking at the lecture for NASA's 50th anniversary

Catherine Lucy Hawking, FRSA (born November 2 1969) is an English journalist and novelist. She is the daughter of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and his ex-wife Jane Wilde, and she lives in London.

Education and career

Hawking studied French and Russian at the University of Oxford, and then commenced work as a journalist. She has worked for New York magazine and has written for the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Times, and the London Evening Standard. She has also worked as a radio journalist.

Hawking has written two novels: Jaded (2004) and Run for Your Life (2005) (also published as The Accidental Marathon).

In 2007 she published George’s Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure story about a small boy called George who finds a way to slip through a computer generated portal and travel around the solar system. Written with her father, Stephen Hawking and his former Ph.D. Student, Christophe Galfard, George’s Secret Key has been translated into 38 languages and published in 43 countries. George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt, a look across the universe for signs of life followed in 2009. Their third children's story will be about "What happened at the Big Bang?" The third book is titled George and the Big Bang.

In April 2008 Hawking participated in NASA’s 50th Birthday lecture series, contributing a talk on children and science education. Based on her experiences in touring worldwide with George's Secret Key, giving talks for children on physics and astronomy, the lecture highlighted the need to engage children in science at an early age.

Hawking won the Sapio Prize for popularizing science, awarded in Rome in October 2008 and is vice president of the National Star College, a residential foundation which provides care and education for young adults with complex and multiple disabilities.

In 2010 Arizona State University appointed Hawking writer-in-residence of its 2011 Origins Project.

Personal Life

Lucy Hawking was married to Alex Mackenzie Smith. Their first child, a son named William (born 1998) was born. William has autism. The couple divorced in 2004.

Bibliography

• Jaded, 2005 ⁺
• Run for Your Life, 2006 ⁺

Children's fiction

These are co-written with her father Stephen.

• George's Secret Key to the Universe, (Random House, 2007) ISBN 978-0-385-61270-8
• George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2009) ISBN 978-1-4169-8671-3
• George and the Big Bang, (Doubleday, 2011) ISBN 978-0-385-61191-6