You graduated with a degree in English and drama, but what inspired your passion for science?
I was always interested in science. Yet when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I got a particularly terrible exam result in physics and it really put me off. It was one of those things that happened during the change between schools and I don’t think our physics teacher realised we weren’t all up to the same stage.
Did you find it wasn’t being taught in a way that worked for you?
Teaching science can be problematic because it seems entirely separate to the world around you. There’s this series of equations and ideas that sometimes aren’t connected to everything that you see. That’s why I think the great science popularisers and communicators are those who will show you something that you have experienced and then get you to think about that
