I must have discovered my passion for biology after reading David Attenborough's Life on Earth
and realising that, what I really wanted to do, is to protect all of this for the future.
I first became interested in being a geologist after I went on an A-level field trip.
Five days in the field, I was hooked.
This shipyard was building a polar research vessel in my hometown.
I wanted to go but, in the early 80s, women and children
were not allowed in shipyards and I was refused.
I was furious and said "one year I will go to the Antarctic on her."
Thirteen years later she picked me up from Cape Horn.
For the deep field stuff, you really are just in a tent on your own, for several
days sometimes, away from any other contact.
One of the best bits about the job is seeing the seabed
and knowing that I'm one of the few people that have seen it at that depth.
We have huge challenges we're facing:
climate change, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, overpopulation, sea-level rise,
energy security, water security. When you're out pretty far from land and you
see plastic floating in the ocean, it's quite alarming. You realise that it's not
a black-and-white picture and sometimes you get to the point where
you're not really sure how some of these problems can be solved, but then
you go back to the drawing board and try and work out a different track
which might help.
I do this because I'm fascinated by nature.
Every time I get up onto a research vessel, I have butterflies.
I guess I love the idea of taking like a boring functional urban space
and turning it into something that's beautiful, that's really good for the environment.
You're filling in a small piece of the jigsaw.
I love rocks, I know that sounds really cheesy. Because I'm nosy.
Because I like to see progress being made.
The science that NERC funds is absolutely vital.
All of the work that I do is funded by NERC.
So, without NERC support, none of this would be possible.