Charlotte Simmonds: Chasing Stars
Today on People Doing Physics, we’re delighted to welcome Charlotte Simmonds, an astronomer with an incredible journey and a woman on a quest.
Of all the guests we had the pleasure to welcome here, Charlotte stands out as one of the most determined, driven by an unshakable fascination for the universe, and our place within it. If astronomy was always her end goal, she first studied and started her career as a music teacher. But when the time was right, she finally embraced her first love and passion and navigated her way through the various challenges that academia invariably presents.
Now a postdoc in the Galaxy Formation and Evolution Group at the Cavendish, it looks like she’s found her rightful place in the universe and is already preparing for her next move.
With Charlotte, we’ll talk about taking chances, the importance of representations in science and her efforts to demonstrate that no matter who you are and how different you may be, there’s a place for you in science if you want it…
Useful links
- Details on Charlotte's research are on the Galaxy Formation and Evolution Group website.
- Watch one of Charlotte's talk: "Unveiling the Mysteries of the Early Universe with JWST", part of the Cambridge Physics Centre lecture series
- To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to the Cavendish website.
Share and join the conversation
- Help us get better by taking our quick survey. Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you!
- If you like this episode don’t forget to rate it and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps others to find us.
- Any comment about the podcast or question you would like to ask our physicists, email us at podcast@phy.cam.ac.uk or join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #PeopleDoingPhysics.
Episode credits
Hosts: Charlie Walker and Vanessa Bismuth
Recording and editing: Chris Brock
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Welcome to People Doing Physics, the podcast that explores the personal side of physics at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
Speaker A:Hi, I'm Vanessa Bismuth from the Communications Office.
Speaker B:And I'm Charlie Walker, a researcher at Cavendish Astrophysics.
Speaker A:Today on People Doing Physics, we're delighted to welcome Charlotte Simmons, an astronomer with an incredible journey and a woman on a quest.
Speaker A:Of all the guests we had the pleasure to welcome here, Charlotte stands out as one of the most determined, driven by an unshakable fascination for the universe and our place within it.
Speaker A:If astronomy was always her end goal, she first studied and started her career as a music teacher.
Speaker A:But when the time was right, she finally embraced her first love and passionate and navigated her way through the various challenges that academia invariably presents.
Speaker A:Now a postdoc in the Calexi Formation and Evolution Group at the Cavendish, it looks like she's found her rightful place in the universe and is already preparing for her next move.
Speaker A:With Charlotte, we'll talk about taking chances, the importance of representations in science, and her efforts to demonstrate that no matter who you are and how different you may be, there's a place for you in science.
Speaker A:If you want it.
Speaker A:Stay with us.
Speaker A:So welcome, Charlotte, and thank you for being with us today.
Speaker C:Hi.
Speaker C:Thank you for having me.
Speaker C:That was a very lovely introduction.
Speaker C:Thank you for that.
Speaker A:So, Charlotte, you grew up in South Africa before moving to Chile.
Speaker A:Can you tell us about your early years in South Africa and how the clear skies might have influenced your fascination with stars and the universe?
Speaker C:Yes, of course.
Speaker C:I was born in South Africa in a very small town, six blocks by six blocks, and I lived there until I was about seven.
Speaker C:So I remember just looking at the sky and being fascinated about everything that was out there, the stars in particular.
Speaker A:So was that where your passion or your love of astronomy or whatever you called it then?
Speaker C:Yes, I think so.
Speaker C:I think that's where the fascination came from.
Speaker A:And you said something in our chat to prepare this show.
Speaker A:You said that when you were looking at the sky, it was like a way of escaping somehow.
Speaker A:Can you tell us a little bit more about.
Speaker C:Yes, yes.
Speaker C:So I carried that on forever.
Speaker C:So since I was lucky enough to see the sky when I was young, because where I was, there was no pollution in the sky, no light pollution or no smog.
Speaker C:Then we moved to Chile.
Speaker C:There was a lot of light pollution, but I still knew there were stars behind the pollution.
Speaker C:And it always just gave me a way out, because when life got really difficult, I would just sit outside and look at the stars and just Imagine that there was something bigger out there, something better.
Speaker C:And it just gave me some comfort to know that everything was so big and I was so small that somehow there was.
Speaker C:My problems didn't seem so big anymore.
Speaker A:That's nice.
Speaker A:And that's something that you carried with you and still until now.
Speaker A:And I was about to ask about how it moved to Chile, if it had any impact on your love for stars, because you couldn't.
Speaker A:I mean, you were saying that there is a lot more pollution.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:If anything, it made me more curious about it because they were playing hard to get right.
Speaker C:They were hidden behind the smog and the light pollution.
Speaker C:So I didn't get to see them that often, but it just made me want to see them even more.
Speaker B:I think that's amazing.
Speaker B:And out of all the guests that we've had on this podcast, it sounds like your journey has been one.
Speaker B:There's been a real, you know, a process of twists and turns and you've been on a mission.
Speaker B:So could you rewind a bit and just kind of share with us some of your key moments along the way that brought you to.
Speaker B:To Cambridge, where you are today?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So I left school, high school, when I was 17.
Speaker C:We moved to Australia with my family.
Speaker C:I didn't have much of a choice in that.
Speaker C:While I was there, I worked as a receptionist for a year, made some money, got a scholarship to study in Chile to go back and be independent.
Speaker C:But unfortunately the university wasn't the best at science, so I went for my second love, which was education and music.
Speaker C:So I studied to be a music teacher.
Speaker C:I did that.
Speaker C:It took about five years.
Speaker C:Then I worked a year or two in a public school.
Speaker C:And then finally the circumstances changed and I was able to do astronomy, which is what I always wanted, and I was able to switch.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker B:And so starting at school, then how did you find it?
Speaker B:And you mentioned to us that you did a lot of self teaching in your school years.
Speaker B:So would you say that that helped shape your process to learning or equipped you for where you are now?
Speaker C:Yes, for sure.
Speaker C:I think the most useful thing in my experience, when you're doing research, it's not the knowledge you have, but just if you know how to learn and how to approach new content and new problems.
Speaker C:And given my maybe kind of unique circumstances, I also went to a school that wasn't particularly good, especially when it came to science, so.
Speaker C:So I just had to learn the things that I really enjoyed on my own, which were math and physics.
Speaker C:That also Means I have a huge gap in anything else that's not math and physics, like biology for example, and geography.
Speaker A:Oh, who cares?
Speaker C:But it definitely gave me a leg up because now I know how to learn.
Speaker C:I can just approach a new problem and fall into it and be happy and successful.
Speaker A:So how did you self taught?
Speaker A:What did you do?
Speaker C:So most of the time I would steal my older siblings books.
Speaker C:So I have several siblings, but one that really inspired me to do science and to become who I am today is my older sister Jocelyn.
Speaker C:So she is a computer scientist and is a professor right now in Chile.
Speaker C:And so she's eight years older than me.
Speaker C:So when she was in union, had her calculus books and algebra books and things that I thought were really fun, I would just kind of steal those and, and try to learn on my own because it just sounded like a fun little problem to solve.
Speaker C:That's how I got into it.
Speaker A:And so you, you went through the, the journey quickly, but I'm quite interested to, to go back to that.
Speaker A:So you left school, you went to Australia, you did a few jobs here and there, then you went back to university, you studied to be a, like a student, sorry, music teacher.
Speaker A:And then you decided to pursue astronomy.
Speaker A:And so what motivated you to finally follow your passion at the age of what were you?
Speaker A:25?
Speaker C:Yeah, I started my undergrad when I was 25 in astronomy.
Speaker C:It was mostly that I could finally do it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it was always the plan, you wanted to do it.
Speaker C:It wasn't the plan.
Speaker C:I'm not good at planning.
Speaker C:But it was something I wanted to do.
Speaker C:And as soon as I, I just went for it.
Speaker C:I don't think age is an obstacle for learning or for doing new things.
Speaker C:So as soon as I could, it was worth it to just try.
Speaker A:It's not so much the age, but like you were already doing something else.
Speaker C:Yes, yes.
Speaker C:That was actually very difficult transitioning from education to astronomy because when I was teaching in a school I felt like I made a very big difference.
Speaker C:It was a public school, I interacted with a lot of children and I felt like I made a very big difference in their lives.
Speaker C:Whereas moving to astronomy felt a bit selfish in a sense because science is fun, but you don't impact the world in the same way.
Speaker C:So it was difficult in that sense to make the switch.
Speaker C:But that is why I do a lot of outreach and education now in astronomy.
Speaker A:And we'll talk about that later.
Speaker A:But in the meantime, can you tell us a little bit more about your undergrad studies and what you did in terms of.
Speaker A:Because you did some research straight from the beginning.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:So I was very determined when I started my undergrad in astronomy that I knew I wanted to get a PhD in it, and I knew I didn't want to do a master's.
Speaker C:So in Chile, the degrees are very long.
Speaker C:The undergrad is about five years, a master's is two more years, a PhD is another five years.
Speaker C:So I wanted to skip as much of that as I could.
Speaker C:And I wanted to do a PhD in Europe because I really wanted to leave the country.
Speaker C:And so in my second year of undergrad, I went to talk to one of the professors who taught me an Intro to Astronomy course, and I basically just begged him to give me a job.
Speaker C:I would make coffee if it was necessary, but please just let me come to the group meetings and learn.
Speaker C:And he gave me much more than that.
Speaker C:He helped me plan my way and gave me a job in research.
Speaker C:And I ended up publishing two papers as a first author, as an undergrad, went to conferences, had an office.
Speaker C:Yeah, it was a lot more than I expected, and it gave me a very big leg up in my journey in academia.
Speaker A:Did that comfort you in your.
Speaker A:In a way, in, like, that's what you wanted to.
Speaker A:Where you wanted to be and what you wanted to do?
Speaker A:Because I guess it's one thing to, like, be really interested in a subject and then study it and then do the research.
Speaker A:And there's like, many pitfalls and moments where you can just say, well, actually I like learning about stars, but do I want to study them?
Speaker C:So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Something that it really helped me with was I felt very valued at the moment because I was being given these opportunities that most people don't.
Speaker C:And I'm very aware of it, and I'm very grateful for them.
Speaker C:But that also gave me motivation because I was working really hard, but also was being rewarded so much for my work that it made it feel worth it.
Speaker C:So that helped a lot.
Speaker B:So it's funny you said you don't usually do plans, but you have things you wanted to do, because from our previous chat, it sounded like you pretty much did have a plan.
Speaker B:You knew you wanted to go to Europe, and then you kind of knew what that would require and what would look good, you know, while you were.
Speaker B:While you were having your PhD interviews and things.
Speaker B:So can you tell us a little bit more about how you set out to achieve what you wanted to do?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker C:So when I say I don't plan, it's more that There's a lot of things I would like to do.
Speaker C:It doesn't mean I'm going to do them.
Speaker C:But in this case, I sat down with my supervisor in Chile, Franz Bauer, and we had a little chat.
Speaker C:He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, I want to do a PhD in Europe and I don't want to do a Master's.
Speaker C:I cannot do two extra years of studying.
Speaker C:It will kill me.
Speaker C:And so he told me, well, you have to publish, then you have to go to conferences, you have to do research.
Speaker C:And he helped me plan that out during my undergrad years in order to be in a position by the end of it that I was competing, you know, I was at a good level to compete with other students to get into a PhD.
Speaker B:And you had some lofty goals.
Speaker B:When you were first applying, you mentioned that you applied to a few places.
Speaker B:Can you tell us which those were?
Speaker C:Yes, yes.
Speaker C:So I applied to Cambridge, to Oxford, and to the IMPRES programs in the Max Planck in Germany.
Speaker B:And how did.
Speaker B:How did that initial step of applications go?
Speaker C:Well, initially, it went great.
Speaker C:Everyone gave me interviews and I was top of the world.
Speaker C:I felt so good.
Speaker C:I felt my work was, you know, it had all been worth it.
Speaker C:The interviews, unfortunately, went horribly bad.
Speaker B:Could you tell us a little bit more about why?
Speaker B:Why that was.
Speaker B:What was.
Speaker B:What was it about the interviews?
Speaker C:I think it's not.
Speaker C:I can't blame the interviews or the places entirely.
Speaker C:I think I was selling myself as something that I'm not.
Speaker C:I was very much trying to fit into a profile of what I thought a scientist was.
Speaker C:And I had, you know, what we see in the movies, people are really smart.
Speaker C:They're very good at doing equations.
Speaker C:They know everything at the, you know, the drop of a hat.
Speaker C:And that is just not me.
Speaker C:And I sold myself like that.
Speaker C:In my cv, you would see I had publications and stuff, which sounds really impressive and pointing towards that kind of profile.
Speaker C:But then you meet me and I'm not like that at all.
Speaker C:I have to Google a lot of things because I forget things like I won't do equations on the whiteboard if I'm not prepared for it.
Speaker C:And so these places were just not a good fit for my profile.
Speaker B:And I just want to drill down into that idea for a second.
Speaker B:So how.
Speaker B:How have you come to realize that maybe it's about selling yourself rather than selling an idealized version based on, you know, Hollywood scientists?
Speaker C:I think through experience, through getting a bit older, and just through rejection as well, because I did not Have a good success rate with what I was trying to do.
Speaker C:And I think when I finally made up my mind that I might be okay leaving academia and I'll just try to sell myself the best as I can.
Speaker C:I know what I'm good at, I know what I'm bad at, so I'm just going to sell what I'm actually really good at.
Speaker C:And it worked.
Speaker C:And I just kept on finding jobs after that.
Speaker B:We're glad we still have you.
Speaker B:We'll come to that in just a little bit.
Speaker B:But first, so these setbacks, these initial PhD rejections, could you sort of tell us a little bit about your reaction to those rejections and then what you did next and how that helped you find your way through?
Speaker C:I would love to say I reacted in a mature way, and I didn't.
Speaker C:It was horrible.
Speaker C:I felt like I had lost my time.
Speaker C:I wasted all this effort on nothing.
Speaker C:I'm not good enough.
Speaker C:And I think it's.
Speaker C:I see this a lot in students and other colleagues as well.
Speaker C:We tend to tie our worth as a person with our worth as a scientist.
Speaker C:And so when someone rejects you for a job, you're not just not getting the job.
Speaker C:You don't have value as a person because your identity is so tied with your job that you're nothing without it.
Speaker C:And I'm very grateful I went through this because that's how I kind of learned how to separate it.
Speaker C:I am myself if I'm an astronomer or not or if I have a job or not.
Speaker C:And so now the rejections hit very differently when they come, because they're not rejecting me.
Speaker C:I'm just not the right person for that job at that time.
Speaker B:It's a very healthy way of looking at it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But it took a lot of time to get here.
Speaker B:And is that message you try and get out there to people who you work with now?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Because in the end, if they don't want to hire you for who you are, you probably don't want to work there either.
Speaker C:And it takes a long time to accept that, but it.
Speaker C:It's a good thing to think about in the journey.
Speaker B:So how did you find the people.
Speaker C:Who did decide to hire you for the PhD?
Speaker C:It was very much kind of luck.
Speaker C:A lot of the process, I think, for all of us in academia is you have to be good, you have to work, and you also have to be very lucky and know the right person at the right time.
Speaker C:When I was finishing my undergrad, I happened to work with a postdoc who had a friend who was working at ESO, doing a fellowship, and he needed a student for six months.
Speaker C:So I got a studentship at eso.
Speaker A:ESO for our listeners.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:European Southern Observatory.
Speaker C:So they have offices in Santiago, where I was from.
Speaker C:So I worked there for six months.
Speaker C:And while I was there, there was an internal email that came out from Ann Berham, who's a professor in the University of Geneva, and she was looking for a student, and it was a bit outside of the normal application times, so I just sent her an email like, hey, I haven't finished my undergrad yet, but here's my CV.
Speaker C:And we had one Zoom chart that was like 20 minutes.
Speaker C:We didn't talk about science, she didn't make me do equations.
Speaker C:We just clicked.
Speaker C:We laughed a lot, and she offered me a PhD by the end of it.
Speaker C:And that was it.
Speaker C:I said yes immediately.
Speaker C:Where?
Speaker C:In the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so it's all about taking chances, right?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But the PhD itself, I mean, it was great.
Speaker A:You signed up for the three years in Geneva and you jumped on a plane and you went off and off.
Speaker A:You were to be a researcher in astronomy.
Speaker A:But the PhD itself, I think, was a bit challenging.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I did not enjoy my PhD time.
Speaker C:By the end of it, I kind of wanted to leave academia and maybe just focus on outreach.
Speaker C:It was pandemic during my PhD.
Speaker C:So, like, two years of that, of the four years were really weird.
Speaker C:So that is part of the problem.
Speaker C:But also I had two supervisors.
Speaker C:So I had this lovely supervisor that I talked to via Zoom.
Speaker C:We clicked.
Speaker C:It was great.
Speaker C:But I also had another supervisor who we didn't click.
Speaker C:I can't blame him entirely for this, but we just didn't.
Speaker C:He didn't like the way that I.
Speaker C:That I think, or the way that I approach problems.
Speaker C:So I went from feeling very valued as an undergrad and having all these opportunities that no one else had to going to a place where it seemed that I was just never good enough.
Speaker C:And it.
Speaker C:It was really difficult.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But so eventually, though, you.
Speaker A:You got your PhD, you published your.
Speaker A:Your thesis, and you still decided like, you hated astronomy, but you still decided to pursue, to continue, and to go for a postdoc.
Speaker A:So how did you manage to bounce back from I love astronomy to let's continue and do a postdoc?
Speaker C:Well, I didn't hate astronomy per se.
Speaker C:I hated academia at that point and the way academia made me feel.
Speaker C:I still wanted to try to get at least one job because I wanted to know how it felt like just having one job where I could prove if I was good or bad.
Speaker C:I wasn't sure at that point.
Speaker C:By the time I finished the PhD, I thought I was a terrible student and a terrible scientist.
Speaker C:But if someone gave me a shot, I was willing to try and at least be sure.
Speaker C:Was it that I was bad or was I just in the wrong place at the time?
Speaker C:I really wanted to find that one job to make sure about what I would do next.
Speaker C:And I was lucky.
Speaker C:I got one here.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what did you do?
Speaker A:What happened?
Speaker C:So I sent, I think, four applications for a postdoc.
Speaker C:I got two interviews, and I got one offer, which was this one, and I wasn't the first choice.
Speaker C:So I had to wait like a month where the list went down.
Speaker C:So this was a lot of luck as well.
Speaker C:But I'm very happy it worked out the way it did.
Speaker A:Did you find that the interview process for postdocs were, like, slightly less horrible than for the PhD?
Speaker C:It was so much nicer.
Speaker C:I had a chat with my current supervisor.
Speaker C:We were all smiling, and they were very happy with my style of communicating.
Speaker C:Was always a bit, like, outreachy and jokey.
Speaker C:They were perfectly fine with that.
Speaker C:And also, there were no expectations.
Speaker C:I didn't feel like I was being tested to see if I was smart or good enough.
Speaker C:They already knew what I did, and they were interested in hiring me from what they already knew.
Speaker C:So it was very different from the PhD experience where.
Speaker C:Where I felt people were trying to probe if I could actually do math and physics, which I'm not good at doing without preparation.
Speaker B:So what are you doing now?
Speaker C:So now I look at galaxies that are far away with the James Webb Space Telescope, mainly.
Speaker A:Finally.
Speaker C:Yes, finally.
Speaker C:And it's been amazing.
Speaker C:I love galaxies.
Speaker C:It's so much fun.
Speaker A:Do you do any research into black holes at all?
Speaker A:Because I understand.
Speaker A:We understand that you also very fascinated by those.
Speaker C:That was my first love.
Speaker C:So my first papers as an undergrad were in what we call active galactic nuclei.
Speaker C:So in the center of every supermassive galaxy of massive galaxies, we believe there's a supermassive black hole.
Speaker C:And when that black hole is feeding, things are falling into it kind of constantly.
Speaker C:We call it active.
Speaker C:So those were my first years in astronomy.
Speaker C:But now I just look at galaxies and I try to avoid the ones that have these active black holes in them.
Speaker A:So what are you.
Speaker A:Do you want to delve a little bit more into it?
Speaker A:What kind of galaxies are you looking at?
Speaker A:What are you looking for?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:So I have an elevator pitch.
Speaker C:So the elevator pitch is that after the Big Bang, the universe was dark and neutral.
Speaker C:We had no stars yet, no galaxies, nothing.
Speaker C:Just neutral hydrogen, pitch black.
Speaker C:But as the universe expanded, it cooled down enough that structures could form and we could get the first stars shining in the first galaxies.
Speaker C:And as they started shining, they started shining little bubbles around them.
Speaker C:And as those bubbles started to overlap, we got the universe eventually that we know and love today, which is full of light.
Speaker C:And so what I tried to do is understand which kind of galaxies did this process of lighting up the universe and how they did it.
Speaker C:And it's a bit of a romantic view of it, but I love it.
Speaker C:And that's what I'm trying to figure out.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker B:And you mentioned the importance of sort of feeling valued in the work.
Speaker B:So what is it that makes you feel valued here then?
Speaker B:Is it the fact that you're doing all of this research or is it the fact that you're publishing papers?
Speaker C:You know what made me feel very valued here is that I feel very accepted for who I am.
Speaker C:Like, I know you can't see me on the podcast, but I have pink hair, tattoos, I wear slippers that, you know, dinosaur slippers in the office.
Speaker C:And no one cares because that's just me.
Speaker C:And it has nothing to do with my science.
Speaker C:They also.
Speaker C:My supervisor is amazing, so that has been a very positive experience for me.
Speaker C:So he's allowed me to grow a lot and supports me not only in the science, but he lets me do all the outreach that I want and work with kids in schools.
Speaker C:So I feel like I'm not only valued as a scientist, but they like this full package of me, which is what I want someone in work to, you know, that's what I want them to do.
Speaker B:But, alas, we're losing you soon.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Could you tell us a little bit more about where you're going next and what your goals are there?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So I recently found out that I'm going back to Chile.
Speaker C:I'm going to be a professor in Universidad Chile.
Speaker C:It's not the same university I did my undergrad in.
Speaker C:It's the competing university, but it's the place that I really wanted to go because it's state owned and they have a lot of interaction with the community.
Speaker C:So Chile has an issue that it's very unequal.
Speaker C:So socioeconomic differences make a huge difference in your outcome and your future.
Speaker C:And so this university has a lot of summer programs and works with schools to get kids into STEM and Girls into science and stuff like that.
Speaker C:So I'm very keen to be there and try to make academia a bit of a nicer place, at least in the small circle that I have power over.
Speaker B:So given that the many experiences of different teaching methods that you have been taught with over the course of your journey through academia so far, are there any lessons that you're hoping to take on as.
Speaker B:As a.
Speaker B:As a professor?
Speaker C:Well, something that I already do now is I always try to be vocal about what.
Speaker C:What I do, like about what someone is doing, which I think we need to do more in academia.
Speaker C:We're so used to just if someone shows you work, you just criticize it, you just pick it apart and try to find, you know, where it's weak to make it better.
Speaker C:And I do understand that the motivation is to do better science, but I think it makes such a big difference when you.
Speaker C:Yes, you give suggestions, but you also acknowledge all the work and all the effort that goes into it.
Speaker C:Just making students feel comfortable and valued.
Speaker B:Building them up.
Speaker C:Yes, building them up, not tearing them down.
Speaker C:And so I'm very keen to do that.
Speaker B:That's fantastic.
Speaker B:And it's also clear that from your story, other than astronomy, music is a big part of your life and always has been.
Speaker B:Do you have any plans to take that up again when you go back?
Speaker B:Do you want to combine music and science somehow?
Speaker B:What are you thinking?
Speaker C:So I would like to go back to having to do more music.
Speaker C:I mean, these years, it's been on the back burner for sure.
Speaker C:At some point in my undergrad, I had to sell my piano to buy a laptop to work for science.
Speaker B:It's clear how much you wanted to.
Speaker C:Get to where you are now.
Speaker C:I can finally now know that I'm going to be hopefully in the same place for basically forever.
Speaker C:So I can settle down, maybe pick up the cello again, which was my favorite instrument.
Speaker C:So I look forward to having the time and the space to do that.
Speaker B:I look forward to hearing an album called Time and Space.
Speaker C:That would be cool.
Speaker A:Here and now.
Speaker A:It's clear from our conversation so far that you're quite passionate about outreach and in particular, I think, building trust in scientists.
Speaker A:Can you share some of the activities that you're involved in and that are important to you?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, I can tell you what I've done in the past week.
Speaker A:Yeah, go for it.
Speaker C:Last Wednesday, I did a public outreach talk here in Cambridge.
Speaker C:They happen every Wednesday, so I did the one that's specifically geared towards children.
Speaker C:The midterm One.
Speaker C:Then Saturday, I did exoplanet outreach for the Amateur Society of Astronomy here in Cambridge, but for children again.
Speaker C:And yesterday I went to visit my school kids because I work one term a year with the Cambridge Math School.
Speaker C:So I get four students, they work on a project for a full term, and they get to finish with a presentation and a poster.
Speaker C:It's really cool.
Speaker C:So I just basically say yes to any kind of outreach that I can do.
Speaker A:So, as a female scientists, how do you see the importance of representations in the field of science?
Speaker A:And what do you want to convey?
Speaker A:What kind of message do you want to convey to young aspiring scientists?
Speaker C:I think representation matters a lot.
Speaker C:Not just a gender thing, just also seeing people that look a bit different to what you're used to think a scientist looks like already makes a huge difference.
Speaker C:So I think for sure we have to increase representation so girls, and not just girls, anyone can see themselves represented in the field, because it really doesn't matter what you look like.
Speaker C:Your brain is all that matters.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And I would like that to be open knowledge for everyone.
Speaker C:And I forgot the second part of the question.
Speaker A:No, that was it.
Speaker A:It was like what we wanted to convey to your aspiring scientists.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I want to let them know that they can do anything they want.
Speaker C:And when I work with children, you can see it.
Speaker C:You can see, like, the girls especially tend to come to me a lot more than the boys.
Speaker C:And I think it's just because they're not used to seeing someone like me in front of the group talking about these things.
Speaker C:And you can hear them afterwards talking about how they want to become maybe scientists in the future.
Speaker C:It's lovely.
Speaker C:I don't think everyone should be a scientist, but it's nice for them to know that they can if they want to.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what we're kind of saying.
Speaker A:If you want, there is a place for you.
Speaker A:Whatever you look like, there is no mold that you need to fit in.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:And that's like, outreach is the best way to do that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's like being out there and being visible and saying out loud and to as many people as you can.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, these kind of things.
Speaker A:And you're also, I mean, you're helping us on social media do this kind of.
Speaker A:Also this kind of outreach work.
Speaker A:So, yeah, thanks for those efforts as well.
Speaker B:So you've already given loads of advice, but if you had one piece that you give your younger self staring up at the stars in South Africa, what would you say?
Speaker C:Well, a couple things.
Speaker C:One is that things can and will get better.
Speaker C:And the second is take, take some time to look at yourself, whoever you are, Figure out what you're good at.
Speaker C:Figure out what you're bad at.
Speaker C:Don't sell what you're bad at.
Speaker C:Don't sell what you're not.
Speaker C:Sell what you are.
Speaker C:Because everyone has a unique profile.
Speaker C:You sell that.
Speaker C:Sell what you enjoy and what you're good at and, and you'll be fine.
Speaker C:Whatever path that takes you to, you will probably be happy doing it.
Speaker B:That's great advice.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker C:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:So thank you very much to Charlotte Simmons for joining us today.
Speaker B:As always, if you would like to learn more about what we discussed in this episode and more generally about our work at the Cavendish Laboratory, please have a look at the show notes or go to our website.
Speaker B:If you have any questions you would like to ask our physicists, head to social media and tag us with a hashtag.
Speaker B:PeopleDoingPhysics.
Speaker B:This episode was recorded and edited by Chris Brock.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening to people doing physics.
Speaker B:We will be back soon.
Speaker B:Until then, take care.
