Scientists are often depicted as boring geeks who spend all day in the lab a view that can put off young people thinking of pursuing a career in science. But a new exhibition sets out to prove that being a scientist or an engineer can be massively interesting and rewarding.

Leading Lights is a portrait exhibition of pioneering young scientists. It features a snowboard designer, a space nanomaterials researcher, a sustainability adviser for the 2012 Olympics, and many more.

The exhibition opens on 1 May in Manchester and will be touring the UK. The portraits have been commissioned by STEMNET, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Network, and were taken by leading photographer Richard Cannon.

The portrait subjects are not only pioneers in their fields: they also work as ambassadors for science, technology, engineering and maths. They go into schools and colleges all over the UK and fire up young people about jobs in these areas, by giving workshops and talks, organising activities and experiments, and mentoring.

The ambassadors programme was created in 2002 by STEMNET, using government funding. Since then it has grown to involve over 19,000 professionals, and plans to recruit another 8,000 by 2011.

The UK is the only country at present to have such a scheme.