Ever wondered about Stephen Hawking’s personal life other than his science and discoveries?? And what about his children? You must be wondering about who the children of the greatest physicist are. Out of his three children, here, in this biography, we have tried to throw light on the biography of Hawking’s one and only daughter –Lucy Hawking.
Keep Scrolling to know more and more about her.
Contents
Lucy Hawking’s Early Time of Life
Catherine Lucy Hawking was born on November 2, 1970, in England. She is the only daughter and second child of renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and author Jane Hawking. She is of white ethnicity and bears British nationality. Her sunshine is Scorpio. She spent her childhood in Pasadena, California, and was raised in Cambridge after her parents settled there. Lucy has two siblings named Robert Hawking and Timothy Hawking. She is currently living in London.
While she was embarrassed observing the amount of negative attention his differently able father was attracting, she claims that she had a normal upbringing. She gives credit to her mother and maternal grandmother for the normal upbringing. She was a responsible child who took care of her father suffering from Motor Neuron Disease.
Education Background
The Hawking’s daughter attended the University of Oxford to pursue a degree in Russian and French language. During her University life, she even managed to stay in Moscow to focus on her Russian studies. Besides, she also went to the City University of London to continue her studies. She gained a degree in International Journalism from that University. Lucy Hawking indeed is following the footstep of her parents.
Personal Life: Family
Lucy Hawking is the second child of Stephen and Jane Hawking. Everyone including those who even don’t have an interest in science knows about Stephen Hawking- the renowned physicist. Stephen Hawking was a great scientist and extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. Though suffering from a disease, he proved to the world that disability isn’t a limitation within itself. His first wife is Jane Hawking. Jane Hawking is an author who has written a book called “Making a trip to Infinity: My Life with Stephen“. This book was later adapted to make the movie The Theory of Everything that we all are aware of. Lucy Hawking taking inspiration from her great dad and author mother has developed a keen interest towards the science and writings.
Lucy Hawking has two brothers named Robert Hawking and Timothy Hawking. Robert Hawking is the only member of the Hawking’s family who has thought of pursuing the career as a Scientist. However, he ended up becoming a Software engineer. He works for Microsoft and currently lives in the USA with his family.
Likewise, Timothy Hawking is the younger brother of Lucy Hawking. He works as a brand development manager in LEGO- a global toy firm located in London. Controversies were there that he isn’t the biological son of Stephen, however, Stephen is the person whom he chose to call his father.
When her father gave divorced to her mother in 1995 and married his nurse Elaine Mason, Lucy went into depression. Along with her mother Jane, Lucy played a significant role in taking care of father suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76 on March 14, 2018. Lucy claims that her father’s scientific discoveries and sense of humor have helped him survive so long.
Sneak Peek into Her Career
Lucy Hawking’s ultimate goal was to pursue a career as a writer. With this aim, she began career in journalism thinking that journalism can be a good practice towards her terminal goal. During this period, she penned down for the renowned outlets like ‘New York magazine’, ‘Daily Mail’, ‘The Telegraph’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘London Evening Standard’ and ‘The Times’.
Eventually, she started to write novels walking in the steps of her mother Jane Hawking. Despite going through a lot of personal problems in the early 2000s, side by side her journalism profession, she wrote her first novel called Jaded, released in 2004. Jaded is a thriller novel about a character named William Gadget-London banker whose four friends come together to help him after he declares his life was at risk.
Following the moderate success, she released her second novel in the following year called Run For Your Life. This was also translated into The American Marathon in 2005. By this time, she garnered a huge success.
Likewise, after the successful release of mystery novels, she shifted her writings to children literature. In 2007, she published George’s Secret Key to the Universe collaborating with her scientist father and her Ph.D. student Christophe Galfard. This book is all about the adventure of a small boy named George, who travels around the solar system through a computer-originated portal. It has been converted into 38 different languages and published in 43 countries. Following the success of first series, five other books have been publishes in the series as George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt (2009), George and the Big Bang (2011), George and the Unbreakable Code (2014), George and the Blue Moon (2016) and the last George and the Ship of Time (2018).
She has also received financial aid from the UK Space Agency in 2015 to associate with British publisher Curved House Kids to develop an educational project for astronaut Tim Peake. The output was Principia Space Diary developed in association with Kristen Harrison with the endeavor input from Professor Peter Macowan at the Queen Mary University of London. More than 90,000 students have completed the program, which helped it bag a nomination for the ‘Sir Arthur Clarke Award’ for Excellence in Space Education by the British Interplanetary Society in the year 2017.
All of Lucy’s creations are centered around the theme of teaching science and education to children. She gained her interest in this topic after witnessing one of her son’s friends ask her father about the black hole. He answered that he would turn into spaghetti and the boy was overjoyed with that answer. This incident shaped her perspective on using methods of entertainment such as children literature and science fictions to engage the new generation on post-truth politics and scientific understanding.
Besides these, she has also taught French and Russian language at the University of Oxford.
Marital Status: Divorced or Married?
Lucy Hawking got married to Alex Mackenzie Smith in 1998. He is a former member of the UN Peace Corporation in Bosnia. They are blessed with a son named William from their marriage born in 1999. The couple ended their six years of marriage in 2004. However, the reasons for their separation is still uncovered. William was later diagnosed with autism, has inspired her to support people on the autism spectrum.
In the early 2000s, as her marriage ruined and she came to learn about her son’s autism, she suffered from depression and had resorted to heavy drinking. Nonetheless, with the support from her family and friends, and after getting treatment at a clinic in Arizona, she was able to return to normal life.
After legal separation from her former husband, she has remained single till date.
Award, Recognition, and Philanthropy
Lucy Hawking has been honored with various awards and recognition for her contribution in the field of science. In her visit to NASA on its 50th birth anniversary, she highlighted the importance of engaging children in science at an early age in her speech. The following year, she was award the ‘Sapio Prize’, an Italian award given to innovative researchers, for her efforts to popularize science worldwide.
Similarly, in 2010 she was appointed as writer-in-residence to work on its 2011 Origins Project by Arizona State University. Likewise, in 2013 she was one of the speakers at the “BrainSTEM: Your Future is Now” festival at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Besides, Lucy was also invited to speak at the Emirates Airline Festival held in Dubai in 2017. The same year Lucy was honored by the Amsterdam News Educational Foundation alongside two other women rising in the field of science.
As a philanthropist, she serves as the Vice President of the National Star College– an institution that provides care and education to young adults suffering from complex and multiple disabilities. She also contributes to the Autism Research Trust as a trustee. This institution promotes the general cause of scientific investigation into autism.
Lucy Hawking has also developed the concept for the movie The Party-a virtual reality and 360-degree film. This movie allows people to experience the world through the eyes of someone with autism.
Lucy is active on Instagram with more than 900 followers. Hawking has even shared her life story at the famous show TED Talks.