Question: what inspired you to do science

Hazel Gibson answered on 6 Mar 2018:

Making a difference inspires me most to do science. I have always been really curious, my Mum and Dad said that I basically never grew out of the ‘why’ stage of being a kid, and I love to ask questions, but the main reason I do science is because I want to make a difference. For a while I wasn’t working in science research and what inspired me to move back into it was I noticed a lot of conversations about science, particularly controversial geology, that were happening badly – people were fighting, not talking – and I wanted to help. My work focuses a lot on how different people talk to each other about difficult subjects that can make people very upset and scared, such as new technologies being built near their homes, and also really worried and victimised, such as how we are going to address issues of climate change and our energy futures. If you struggle to pay your energy bills then talking about moving to renewable power sources, which are better for the planet, but will probably be a bit more expensive (at least to start) can make you feel really left out of conversations and for me that is a bad thing.

I want anyone to be able to talk about future energy resources, especially new and potentially concerning ones like geothermal power with anyone else – I want to help people have these discussions better. In order to do that I need to speak to people from lots of different backgrounds first and find out what they need. I can act as a translator between different groups, until eventually they don’t need me at all! By using both sides of my science background, one in geology and one in communication I can help build bridges that make people’s lives easier. That is why I do science.