Well, I was quite naive I wanted to save the world, you know. I grew up in the time of acid rain,
of lots of political instability, the cold war.
I just had that sense. I wanted to do my bit.
So I started physics because I thought yeah, I want some technical solutions.
I want to see something where I could contribute to these big challenges.
I went to the geophysics department
because it seemed like a natural match from my physics background to introduce a little bit more science into my understanding.
It was a really small department. There were only two professors and they both, you know were sort of bit old, big beards.
I had an appointment with one of them. I was quite nervous at the time - big professor, and I'm this little undergraduate.
And I remember I came out so crushed from this discussion because I had so much enthusiasm.
There was so much I wanted to do and
the feedback that I got was because I was a woman
clearly I would have some issues with the math that was required to do geophysics.
And also, but I really wanted to invest that time
having such a long study
just to maybe drop out at the end to have a family.
I just couldn't even fathom that somebody would have such an opinion.
It left me quite
quite shocked, but also
with a strong conviction that I did not want to
study with this person. I needed to find other mentors that actually would see the value of me being part of their team.
So I went to other geo-
type institutes and came across the Earth Science Institute and it was vibrant.
There were lots of people, you know people were keen to talk to you.
You didn't need huge queues for an appointment to see a professor. You could just wander in through the door. It was a wonderful experience.
Oh my god was it
such an interesting and fun time to study.
I first did my undergraduate and then did a masters and while I did my masters working in Iceland.
I read this really amazing news blitz about some geological drilling that was conducted in Antarctica led by a New Zealand team.
It was trying to understand whether Antarctica could become unstable in a warming world and it just sounded so fascinating that I contacted
the chief scientist Professor Peter Barrett.
I called
Peter invited me to call him to talk about the opportunity to maybe conduct a PhD with him.
He said I'm still at Scott Base in Antarctica, give me a call.
So I took up my nerves and I called Peter Barrett in Antarctica and I think, the phone was
answered by an operator. I must have told this poor person my entire life story because I was so nervous
just trying to explain why I was calling it and I was trying to talk to Peter Barrett.
So finally I got to talk to him and Peter said oh that sounds like a good idea,
why don't we try that. So I came and started to do a PhD with Peter that was
related to that project.
So what happened next was that I traveled to New Zealand.
I became part of a team that had a long and distinguished history in
taking marine sediment records from Antarctica. It's the typical Kiwi thing. They were world famous outside New Zealand, you know!
I didn't wanted to do marine sediment records. I wanted to do ice cores.
So ice cores is where you get a much higher resolution record,
and I thought it was quite complimentary to the marine record. So I
was this one ice core person, and I was also one of the only women at the time in the team.
The first time I went to Antarctica was also when I was in charge of the project, which was hugely scary!
It was really interesting because I went with a group of people who were quite experienced in the field.
We boarded the plane in Christchurch,
and head down to Antarctica.
While I was sitting on the plane, I sort of looked around and I realised that there were only two other women on the
entire plane and the rest of the plane was filled with men.
But it really sort of became quite apparent when we had the safety instructions on the plane.
It was pointed out that at the back of the plane
there was a little curtain, and behind the curtain was a metal bucket and the metal bucket was to be used as a bathroom.
Now that's a lot more easier for men than it is for women!
So it was sort of the first introduction for me that I had to adjust a little bit too.
You know that was over 20 years ago now,
and things have changed a little bit.
So there's now a proper bathroom on the planes. But the most noticeable thing is possibly that half the plane are women now.
It's really impressive.
You know when you go to the bases and the New Zealand base is right next to the US base, McMurdo Station.
You actually see
sometimes tiny women driving these massive big operating vehicles. It's wonderful to see that
really this is one of the spaces where
gender has no distinguishing factor anymore.
Perhaps in the early days
it was all about this sort of image of explorer and adventure, and that you had to have sort of certain
characteristics where you could swim through a cold river with a knife between your teeth!
I don't think any of our mentors have ever done this nor have I.
It became a lot more sophisticated that we really needed answers and needed answers soon.
That technology became a lot more important. Skill sets became a lot more important. But of course, we also know that diverse teams just
continuously and
consistently outperform homogeneous teams, right? The more diverse your team is the better it will be.