Helen Gavaghan is a journalist editor and science writer.  She is founder and editor of Science, People & Politics and creator of sciencepeopleandpolitics.com.   Helen's books include the first official history of EUMETSAT, written for high-level decision makers internationally.    Her first book was a well-received history of application satellites, which was researched and written with a prestigious award from the New York-based  Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Helen's latest work, Cracking Genetics, will be published by Cassell - an imprint of Octopus Publishing - in May 2020.    Written for a mass-market audience, the book aims to make this seemingly complex but  important field of science intelligible for the knowedge- hungry lay person.  In her 40-year career Helen has written or edited work for leading international and national science journals and magazines.   She enjoys creating illustrations of science, working with the software package Paint.