Judith Bunting | |
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![]() Bunting in May 2013 | |
Member of the European Parliament for South East England | |
In office 2 July 2019 [1] [2] – 31 January 2020 | |
Preceded by | Richard Ashworth |
Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Dogsthorpe, Peterborough |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge |
Judith Ann Bunting is a television producer and politician who served as a Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the South East England from 2019 to 2020. [3] In 2014, she was chosen by the Royal Society of Chemistry to be one of their 175 Faces of Chemistry. [4]
She had a sister, Janette, [5] [6] born 2 June 1956. They lived at 4 Eastern Close in Dogsthorpe. [7]
Bunting attended Peterborough County Grammar School for Girls, then Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where she obtained a Master's Degree in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) in 1979. [8] Her father taught Mechanical Engineering at Peterborough Regional College.
Bunting has been a producer of educational and science-based documentary television since the 1990s. Her early producing credits include the BBC series Tomorrow's World, Teen Species, [9] [10] Horizon [11] and Robert Winston's The Secret Life of Twins [12] and Superhuman. [13]
She produced three series of the series Body Hits [14] and the RTS Award-winning Breast Cancer - the Operation for BBC3. [15]
In 2007, she was series producer for the BBC Wales series, The Museum. She followed this by executive producing Rocket Science for BBC2 [16] and Headshrinkers of the Amazon for the National Geographic Channel. Her 2009 documentary for the National Geographic Channel, The Neanderthal Code was nominated for a Grierson Award for Best Science Documentary. [17]
Since 2013, Bunting has been series producer for production company Remark! on over 30 episodes of Magic Hands, a programme for CBeebies featuring poetry and Shakespeare for children translated entirely into British Sign Language, in which the presenters are all profoundly deaf. [18]
Since 2012, Bunting has increasingly focused on politics. In the 2015 and 2017 UK General Elections, she stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Newbury [19] and both times came a distant second behind Richard Benyon. [20] She has consistently pursued a broader engagement with science in politics and education. [21] [22] In September 2017, Bunting ruled out a third run as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Newbury to "focus on her career as a television producer". [23]
Bunting was elected as a Liberal Democrat MEP for the South East England in the 2019 European Elections. [24] She was the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Education and Culture in Europe, and also sat on the Industry, Research and Energy committee.
She lives in Newbury, Berkshire.