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 and How Innovation Works. Viral: the search for the Origin of Covid-19, co-authored with Alina Chan and published in 2021.
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 from 2013 to 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.