Science behind Love and Grief - Podcast with Robin May

About this episode

This episode explores the science behind love and grief through an interview with Professor Robin May.

This episode of the Gresham College Podcast features an interview with Robin May, hosted by Jeoffrey Sarpong. Professor Robin May is a Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, and (interim) Chief Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency. We cover what's actually happening in your brain when you lose someone, why grief is hardwired from childhood, whether animals grieve, and what ancient burial sites tell us about human emotion 78,000 years ago. Then we shift to love...

People in this episode

Host: Jeoffrey Sarpong

Guest: Robin May

Topics covered

• grief
• love
• human emotion
• infectious disease
• animal behavior
• ancient burial sites

Keywords

• grief
• love
• brain
• childhood
• animals
• burial sites
• human emotion
• infectious disease

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Birmingham, UK Health Security Agency

More episodes of Gresham College Lectures

• The Pill and the Planet - Ian Mudway · June 12, 2026 · 59 min
• How Hard is too Hard? An Introduction to Complexity - Colva Roney-Dougal · June 9, 2026 · 44 min
• Making Memory Visible Through Photograph - Julia Winckler · June 5, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Dionysus: Lord of Misrule - Ronald Hutton · June 2, 2026 · 47 min
• A Living Planet - Helen Czerski · May 29, 2026 · 59 min
• Music, Death and Afterlife - Mieko Kanno · May 29, 2026 · 41 min