Tell us a bit about what you’re doing now.

“I am a physical oceanographer working at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge. A physical oceanographer is someone who studies the role of the ocean in the climate system, including understanding the ocean currents, how the ocean moves around heat and nutrients, and what role the ocean plays alongside the atmosphere and ice in setting the climate of the planet. ”

“Typically physical oceanographers are either modellers or observationalists. I am very much an observationalist, so I go out and get my hands dirty, taking observations directly form the ocean using various instruments. I do most of my work in the Southern Ocean (the one that sits on the bottom of the world encircling Antarctica). It’s a really fascinating place to work because it links all the other ocean basins together and has a really unique set of properties. It’s really important for taking up heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so has a big and important impact on climate and one that we don’t understand very well because it is very difficult to collect data there.

Typically, I can be south doing practical work for a couple of months a year or so, generally between December and March. For instance, I am often on a large research ship in the Southern Ocean for up to two months, collecting data from the deep ocean. BAS also have five research stations and sometimes I can be based out of one those, doing work which involves putting instruments into the sea from RIBs (rigid inflatables) or other small boats. The rest of the time is spent in Cambridge analysing data, writing papers and producing documents to inform policy makers. It’s a very varied job – I like it because you get to meet lots of interesting people internationally. I get to work a lot with American and European collaborators in lots of different scientific disciplines. It’s a really international effort to understand the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.”

How did you get to where you are today?

“At school I was always interested in the physical world – I was a very keen geographer and geologist.”

“After leaving BGS, I read Geography at Oxford and then undertook a Masters in Applied Meteorology at Reading, initially with the intention of becoming a weather forecaster. However, while I was there I met a couple of academics working on ocean processes and got really interested in the oceans. A lot of the fundamental physics are basically the same, they’re just in a different fluid. It was also a time when the oceans were coming much more to the fore in climate science. A very large float programme had recently started, which was seeding the ocean with thousands of autonomous floats, meaning the amount of physical data coming out of the ocean was increasing dramatically. We were just on the cusp of making some really big, interesting discoveries so I became really interested in ocean science. It was very exciting – I always say that the oceans in the early 2000s were where atmospheric science was in the 1950s – the progress since has been immense.

I undertook my PhD in Southampton, working on circulation in the North Atlantic. During that time I became much more interested in polar science particularly. I find the polar regions really interesting because all the dense water that sits at the bottom of the abyssal ocean (3 or 4 km down) ultimately gets sourced from higher latitudes (Antarctica or Greenland), and flows to the bottom of the ocean. If you go to the bottom of the ocean at the Equator, the water on the top is around 25 degrees and the water at the bottom is only 2 to 3 degrees – that’s because it all gets sourced and subducted from the higher latitude regions. I got very interested in going to those regions and undertook a project with some collaborators in the United States. I ultimately ended up doing post-doctoral research looking at mixing processes in the Southern Ocean. In 2014, I moved to BAS and led a project looking at how warm waters intruding on the continental shelves around the Antarctic were melting ice shelves and glaciers in that region. We think that a lot of the reason that Antarctica, west Antarctica particularly, is losing land based ice, is not because of atmospheric heat from above, but because of rising ocean temperatures. In short, I’d like to say my career path was all planned, but in reality it was a combination of interest and good luck!”

What is your biggest achievement to date?

“After first becoming an independent researcher at BAS through winning a fellowship, I led my first big research programme in the Southern Ocean as part of an international research programme.”

“For this, I led a six-week research cruise, directing a team of 25 people. Being at sea always comes with challenges and it can be quite an intense experience, managing people’s scientific expectations and the different teams, all in challenging weather conditions. For instance, we had a team undertaking all the basic physics, a team who were deploying underwater gliders, a team deploying ocean floats and a group using an instrument that measures turbulence in the ocean. We had a couple of instruments that didn’t work properly but ultimately, when you’re doing cutting edge science, sometimes things don’t go entirely to plan. The challenge as the principal scientist is to make sure that equipment that does work achieves as much as possible.”

What are your fondest memories of BGS?

“All sorts of different things, actually. It was just a really supportive atmosphere amongst all my teachers. There was a feeling that you could do whatever you want to do, which I think is instilled really heavily in BGS ethos.”

“Specifically, I’ve got great memories of my geography and geology teachers who inspired that love of the earth in me. I was also very into debating at BGS and the ability to construct an argument has set me in really good stead for the future.”

How did BGS prepare you for your career and achievements?

“A lot of it is about the ability to think critically about issues and ideas. BGS encourages that amongst its students.”

“It’s not just about learning to the test, it’s about questioning things and saying ‘is this right?’, ‘does X lead to Y lead to Z?’, ‘is that actually logical and sensible?’.  BGS is great in that it gets you through lots of exams and pupils can come out with excellent grades, but the ability to think critically is the most important aspect of the teaching.”

What advice would you give to current pupils at BGS?

“Pursue your dream, don’t feel you have to fall into a particular pathway, be self aware and try and know the sort of person you actually are.”

“Some people want to be a high powered lawyer or doctor, and there’s nothing wrong with that choice. But do think about alternative careers – think about what’s ultimately going to make you happy and pursue that as hard as you can.”