• Question: When you were younger did you aspire to be an environmental scientist? And if so did you have any role models? And if so, were they female inspirational role models or were they scientists of your current field?

    Asked by anon-290486 on 25 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Robin Smith

      Robin Smith answered on 25 Mar 2021:

      Climate science wasn’t something I was especially interested in until I was at university. To start with I was more interested in astrophysics and other planets (who doesn’t like space?!) but there’s so much important stuff to understand about what’s going on on Earth that I got more interested in studying climate on our planet. I don’t think I’ve ever had what you might call an inspirational role model, but I’ve been lucky enough to work with some really great people so far – I think there’s a really great community of scientists in the UK quite aside from all the famous ones.

    • Photo: Megan Metcalfe

      Megan Metcalfe answered on 25 Mar 2021:

      Hello again, 20lhewardcooley! I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I was younger, but I have always been interested in the environment. It was probably at A-levels when I realised that it’s what I wanted to do as a career. I was very influenced by my teachers and lecturers (who, now I think of it, were mostly female). I think my GCSE geography teacher Mrs Barens is probably the one who made learning about the physical environment fun, and inspired me to go on to study Environmental Science at A-level and University. Like Robin, I now work with some incredible female scientists, who have done a lot of really interesting work on palaeolandscapes and are my role models in the industry.

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