[Music] hi Rebecca thank you so much for taking the time to kind of be here today virtually even so um we were first wondering kind of what does a typical day look like for you at the BBC well there there sort of isn't a typical day um every day is every day is a bit bit different and sometimes you don't quite know what you're going to to expect we've just done a report on the anthropos um you know where where scientists are proposing that we've entered into this new Epoch um and you know we we
set it up a few weeks ago we knew it was happening so we went to film at the University of Southampton where they had some samples of sediment um they were sort of looking at the plutonium in there so it's quite a nice bit of chemistry which don't always get to do the anthropy one was quite a hard story to tell because we were you know that it one loads of people don't know what on EO is to start with or kind of what the anthropy natur means and why you're looking at sediment and why you're in a
bog in the AIS of white so you've got you know you've got quite a lot to pack in and most of our news packages were about 2 minutes 15 and some days totally unexpected you know a few weeks ago um we heard that a submersible had gone missing um you know that had been on its way to the Titanic um we'd had all sorts of filming and everything planned but actually we turned around went back to London and did spent the next week reporting very heavily on that that story every day is a bit different i
n theory stories are all a bit different the days you think oh it's just you know I'm going to have a day catching up with my emails something normally pops up and you don't do that I was sort of curious to ask how did you end up working at the BBC I sort of knew at the end of my my masters I knew I wasn't really cut out for a for a life in the laboratory I wasn't very good at it actually I was quite I was quite good at all the sort of the um more academic end of it but the the lab end I wasn't
so fantastic at so I sort started thinking well maybe a life as a chemist isn't isn't for me but I really like talking about it and sort of learning about it so I went to work um for an organization called the science Media Center that was just setting up in in London and there was a general feeling that scientists sort of weren't getting their voices heard um it was sort of they they weren't getting out there in the media and enough so this was a press office for science that was going to sort
of help facilitate scientists speaking to the to the media so um I worked there for a few years and then I was thinking I'd really like to be a journalist actually that bit looks really good really interesting so I actually joined the BBC on a science berer so unfortunately one of their um online writers had passed away with a brain CH was called Ivan Noble um and in sort of memory of him they set up her bery to bring new science and technology writers into the BBC so I applied for that and I wa
s really lucky to get it because lots of L people applied because it's you know it's not the easiest organization to get into and then I just sort of stuck around always in science like always that's been the the thread that's kind of run through what advice would you give to a current chemistry student like us um who wanted to start a career in scientific journalism my advice would be to be a bit flexible I think it's um I try I try things out I think I mean I really I sort of stumbled into my
career I kind of you know bumbled around and kind of worked out the bits I really liked and even within the BBC once I got there as well you know I started out writing then I realized I really like radio really like doing live stuff so you kind of don't be worried that you don't know exactly what you want to do when you you start out I suppose um just be prepared to sort of try try different things and get yourself out there a bit when I was leaving University there wasn't really sort of anywher
e you know I mean social I'm dating myself here but you know I don't think like Facebook maybe Facebook had started but people went on they weren sort of they weren't Outlets where you could sort of do your own thing so that's you know that's kind of that's an opportunity I suppose that that that you guys have that's different now I'd quite like to beon into a bit of a bit more of a nostalgic tone and uh ask you what were your main memories from uh being at Oxford oh you know I had such a nice t
ime at University I've got such fun memories I really loved it so I went to St an's College um and it was such a nice place it was so friendly there and I made so many brilliant friends I remember it being a lot of work um and I was the practicals I was never very good at I always threw away the wrong bit of it you know you were sort of you know you kind of you were supposed to have your solution and uh at the end of it and I always managed to throw away like the wrong half fit so I mean I think
that's when I first got the right the inklings so I'm not very good at following recipes either um that maybe that wasn't wasn't for me but it was so it was so interesting and I I was very good at University like I I sort of I was really hardworking I'm not sure I could be so disciplined now in a way but I remember getting up I used to get up sort of early in the mornings and sort of start my I had like a revision plan I did it every day I'd stop at lunchtime watch a bit of Neighbors when that
was on with my friends have a bit of a break go back and do a bit more so I was quite I was quite organized about about doing it but the exams themselves I can't really remember I mean I remember going you know dressing up in all your finery to to go in and and do them and I I have nightmares about them still actually I mean I did well you know I got first it was kind of you know which I wasn't expecting either but um my nightmares are that the exams are coming up and I haven't done any revision
for them I have a TV nightmare like that as well it's like the sort of six o'clock news is coming up and it's 5 o'clock and I haven't started writing the script for the live script you know it's though it's those kind of it's It's they stay with you I think I loved it it's a beautiful place I love I love coming back my I met my husband there so so you know both of us are very nostalgic about it I've got a 5-year-old now so hopefully we're g to take her to have a little look around um so yeah no
it was it was it was brilliant how do you find doing all this um scientific journalism traveling around learning so much how do you kind of find distilling that to an audience who doesn't have a science background or a mathematical background well I think um a lot of the stories that I don't do very many chemistry stories I mean chemistry sort of runs through all of the stories bit like the anthropos scine and you know the testing in the in the lab but there aren't very many sort of straight ch
emistry stories unless it's like a Nobel Prize winner I suppose in some ways my starting point is the kind of same there lots of other people I don't have sort of you know an in-depth knowledge of those areas but I think it's part of it is is having the confidence to ask the right questions you know and keep going with those questions until you fully understand it how do you think the field of Journalism will change in the future sort of science journalism oh it's changing massively actually I m
ean I think sort of you know when I started out it was you had your TV news bulletins which everyone watched you know your your radio which people listen to online was becoming the thing you know um so you'd write for that and now there's so much extra stuff you're having to do all the time so you know we're doing a lot of streaming now s streaming sort of straight to the website live Pages you know with little bite-size updates it's all the Social Media stuff around their you know Tik Tok video
s now too and I think the thing is it's all quite fast moving so just when you get the hang of one thing and we sort of work out how to do that you know everyone's moved on to the the the next thing so you know we did something about the Titanic um not Titan the submersible this was about some sort of new scans of the Titanic where they'd done these amazing photogrametry scans where it sort of looked as if you were looking the wreck and all the water had gone away from it um you know it's like t
he water had been removed and the pictures were absolutely extraordinary and you know like six and a half million people looked at the online story it ran everywhere on TV radio so even though people necessarily sort of tick science as their sort of subject of Interest they do they do kind of capture the the the imagination so I was also wondering what kind of skills that you gained from doing your Chemistry degree do you think are most applicable in your job now and that really help you with sc
ientific journalism being able to digest lots of information quickly is definitely a good thing um being knowing the process of science how it works from the lab to writing papers to sort of how scientists work together that's a that's a really good thing to I mean journalism is a bit different because you're doing sort of the end step for translating it into something that people can understand but more and more in science that sort part the job now as as well you know sort of adding on a bit o
f science communication to to to the end of your lab work is really really important not being afraid to like tackle hard things because don't you think sometimes with chemistry when you first sort of when you're first hold on here think I'm never going to understand this this is really hard and then you realize actually if you go at it enough you kind of do I think it it teaches you not to be phased by stuff that on the outset looks really really tricky are there any areas of science whether th
ey be emerging or they've been around for quite some time that you enjoy particularly I love all of it actually I love the space stuff is amazing you know been out to to Kennedy see Rockets I love the deep sea um the Deep potion you know sort of the unexplored kind of bits I love the you know done a dinosaur dig before in Wyoming love the natural world I was almost killed at Mount etner a few years ago which was pretty traumatic but kind of you know I I I love all of them actually I I when when
you do a story you tend to just get really into it and I think the nice thing about my job is to get to go to places and speak to people and you meet the nicest scientists you know people are so sort of interesting and helpful and you know it's it's you kind of hear their stories like both about the research and their personal stories what got them into it I mean it's it's yeah know I'm I'm I really I like all areas of it actually I think I think the minute I sort of stop it's probably time to m
ove on from this from this job
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