Extended Episode: Dr Rebecca Bowler - Astronomer

In this extended podcast episode, you'll hear more from Dr Rebecca Bowler who is an Astronomer at the University of Manchester. Rebecca and our student interviewers Nia, Bea and Willow discuss Rebecca’s discoveries during her PhD, what it’s like to work with other astronomers from all over the world, and her experience of being a woman in astronomy .

Some resources that Rebecca recommends are:
The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms by Marcus Chown (ISBN: 9780099578017)
The Life Scientific Podcast - Listen on the BBC website

If you know a group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

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If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

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Check out our website

Transcript

Izzy  00:00

Hi, I'm Izzy host of the STEM Untapped podcast. This week we're releasing an extended edition of our previous episode with Dr Rebecca Bowler, an astronomer at the University of Manchester. In this episode you can find out about Rebecca’s discoveries during her PhD, what it’s like to work with other astronomers from all over the world, and her experience of being a woman in astronomy.

Dr Rebecca Bowler  00:28

So thank you. It's really nice to be here and to be able to chat with you all today. My name is Rebecca Bowler and I am a scientist. I'm an astronomer, and I work at the moment at the University of Manchester. So it's called the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, which is quite a mouthful. But basically, it's affiliated with the Jodrell Bank Telescope, which is really amazing radio telescope near to Manchester. But I'm based in the city of Manchester, and I am a researcher, I research galaxies, I want to know how galaxies form in the universe. And yeah, that's it, basically.

Nia  01:03

I'm Nia. And we're year 11 students doing our GCSEs, and I'm doing food nutrition and preparation, religious studies, geography, and BTech sport. And obviously the English and maths and triple science.

Willow  01:22

My name is Willow. And I'm studying art, drama, geography, and French and triple science and maths and English.

Bea 01:33

I'm Bea. And I'm studying religious studies, history, geography, and drama, and then triple science as well as the maths and English.

Willow  01:42

I think we chose it because it's just so different from anything we've ever been almost taught about. And it's just that sort of new thing. It's quite exciting.

Nia  01:52

I agree with Willow, like we don't really get taught about like space and things like that at school, necessarily. So we thought it'd be quite interesting to learn about it. 

Bea 02:00

Rebecca, how's your day? Been? It's been alright, so far? 

Dr Rebecca Bowler 02:05

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. It's been good. I've had a meeting this morning with my students, I have a PhD student who I'm helping to get through his research. So I met with him on Zoom. He's down in Oxford still. And so that was really nice. We catch up every week on a Monday. So that's my Monday morning spent, and then I answered some emails, which is not very exciting. That's all that's happened so far today.

Willow  02:34

As an astronomer, what does your job entail?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  02:40

It's quite varied, which is why I really like it, actually. So people think I look through telescopes all day, or I stay up all night looking through telescopes. But that's, that's not at all what it's like, actually, I spend my whole day at a computer. But through that, I do my research. And so that's a bit of everything, I would say. I spend some time looking at data. So what I work on is images of the sky, and I look at galaxies in those images. So that's kind of my research part of the day. But I also, as I said before, I like meet students quite a lot, I have quite a lot of telecoms with my collaborators. So it's actually quite a lot of talking in my job, talking to different people, discussing ideas, you know, discussing the data, discussing which telescopes we want to use and stuff like that. I also do quite a lot of reading, because, you know, science is so fast moving and that everyone around the world is working on these problems. And so every day, I check online, and I see oh there’s 10 more articles have come out, I read those. So I read some of those, I'd like to read all of them, but it's quite a lot. And I just try and kind of absorb all the ideas that have happened since the day before. So yeah, it's a bit of everything. I do a bit of data analysis, a bit of, you know, talking and a bit of reading. So it's really good fun.

Bea 04:06

We're just wondering if like any discoveries that you have been a part of, or things that you've found out through your research?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  04:14

My PhD project up in Edinburgh, was looking at some new data, some new images we had, when I started my PhD supervisor, he sort of said, here are some files, go and have a look and see if you can find any galaxies in these files. And we were expecting, like based on the previous work, so all the all the other people had been working for decades before that, that maybe I would find one of the galaxies I was interested in. These are really special galaxies, because they are extremely distant from us. And so they're very rare, but very exciting when we find them. So I thought, Okay, I'm going to spend a few years trying to find one galaxy, but I set to work. And actually I found I found 10. And that was really exciting. It was super exciting. It also made my PhD work a bit more interesting because I had 10 galaxies not just one so that's nice. But it was like really exciting for the scientific community as well because it changed what we thought was happening in terms of the physics, it meant that galaxies could form like more often than we thought before. So it was actually really interesting scientifically as well. And that's kind of been the starting point of my career was this discovery of more galaxies than we were expecting. So that was really, really exciting. And then I mean, science is all about discovery. So I kind of since then, have been finding more interesting things about these galaxies. I've looked at them with the Hubble Space Telescope. And I found that they were actually looked like they're merging. So they actually looked like two, two blobs merging together. That was a discovery as well. And so it kind of happens on and off. But the one I remember the most is the first when I was a student. 

Nia 05:53

So going back to when you said you discovered that there was 10. Were you like the first person to notice that there was 10? Out of like, everybody who’s seen them? 

Dr Rebecca Bowler 06:02

Well, it's because we had this new data, it was really driven by this data. And I was the first person to look at that. And I had about a year before anyone else had had a chance to look at it. So I had a bit of a head start, which is great, especially when you're a student, like you need a bit more time to find these things and to understand what's going on. So yeah, it was I was the first person to find them. And also, everyone always asks me like, did you get to name them? So I'm just going to preempt your question. The answer is yes. But they're not very exciting names. So unfortunately, astronomers most of the time, just use like ID numbers. So you know, one of them's called 169 850. Which means a lot to me, very special to me, but not very exciting to anyone else. But the problem is, there's so many galaxies. So you know, we can't give them all we can't give them all names, unfortunately. But they're special to me. 

Nia 06:53

Quite an exciting thing. I feel like you should feel quite proud of that as well. Like you're the person who discovered those.

Dr Rebecca Bowler 06:59

Yeah, absolutely.

Willow  07:01

So what did you study at school that led to you going to university?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  07:04

So I was trying to remember what GCSEs I did when you were all going through your subjects. Been such a long time, I've just been doing science for so long now. But I remember I did history GCSE. That's not very relevant, is it? I did triple sciences. Yes, I did art that's relevant. So when I was doing my GCSEs I wanted to be an architect. So I did art and I did sciences, because I thought I was quite good at science and maths. But I but my, my grandpa was an architect, and I just sort of thought, oh, maybe I'll do that. But then I got my worst grade in art. So I was going to do physics, maths, further maths and art at A level, but then I didn't do very well at GCSE. And I just thought, like, why am I doing this? So I changed art to chemistry that then I ended up doing like, really quite sciency A levels, then? Oh, yeah, no, but I also did an AS level in philosophy. So that was my one non sciency kind of thing. I really enjoyed that. Because it gave me like something completely different to do, you know, sort of discuss things and like, do a lot of write essays and things which you just don't normally do if you just do maths and physics. So it was also funny, because I was the only scientist in the philosophy class. Whenever we did, like, philosophy of science or anything, the teacher would be like, Rebecca, what do you know about the Big Bang? I’d be like Oh, no. 

Bea 08:22

A lot of pressure?

Dr Rebecca Bowler 08:23

A lot of pressure. Yeah, I felt like I was Yeah, I had to kind of know all of science. But no, it was really nice. Yeah. So then then I did a physics degree after that. So yeah.

Bea 08:31

Which university did you do your physics degree at?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  08:34

So I went to the University of Cambridge. And I did... It's quite unusual there because they do this natural sciences degree. So it's, it's quite a unique thing. So you don't you can't just do physics, when you start, you have to do four subjects. So I did maths, chemistry, physics, and this material science, which was just like you had to just do four, I did that. So it meant that like, you had to do a lot of subjects. And then eventually, I ended up specialising more into physics later on, which I, which I preferred, but it was nice to know a bit more about like chemistry at university level, I would say.

Nia  09:14

You said about how you sit at a computer all day, or you're on meetings and emails, what does your average day sort of look like? Do you work at night? Or do you just look at what other people have found out?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  09:24

Yeah that’s a great question. So I don't work at night. The only time I stay up late is if there's a very important meeting like telecom I have to go to. And because we work internationally, some people are in Australia, and some people are in America. So sometimes the only time we can all meet that's vaguely sensible is at like 10 or 11pm. But that's very rare. I would say we've none of us want to do that. But so no, I work in the day, and it's my usual day is I cycle into the university. So I cycle to work. And then I would check my emails just to see what's going on. If I've missed anything. And then like this morning, I often have student meetings in the morning. So I have a PhD student, but I also have undergraduate students who are doing projects with me. So tomorrow morning, I have two hours of meetings with them, which I really like it's really good fun, and kind of helping helping them with their projects and the problems they're having with the data, and so on. Where I work is really nice. Like we're all on the top floor of this, this building called Alan Turing building. And all of astronomy is on this one floor. So it's really sociable. So like at lunchtime, or coffee time, we all go to the same like common room. So I will do that, if I'm at work that day. And then my afternoons are a mixture of coding. So my actual work that I do, and trying to find these galaxies is using computer coding. So this is how I go from the images. So I get sent these, they're just like photos basically, of from the telescope. But to actually get information from those, I have to run software on those images and have to write my own code to find the galaxies and to measure things from them. So things like the colour of the galaxy, the shape of the galaxy, this sort of thing. So if I have a free afternoon, that's, that's my favourite thing to do. That's what I really love to do. So I get to, like, have the image there. But I'm also like writing this code, and then I can extract the information I want. And that's how I do discover these galaxies and work out what's going on with them. It’s very mixed. As I said, Yeah, with a bit of reading and a bit of telecoms here and there. So I make a plan every Monday morning of my week, and it's every week, it's different. And it has, I can show it to you actually on Zoom. It's in pencil. It has everything on there. So that then I know when I have free time to do my my data analysis. And when I have my meetings and so on.

Nia  11:40

I find it quite helpful having it all planned out the week before. So you've kind of got a to do list.

Dr Rebecca Bowler  11:46

Yeah, I have to do that. Because especially now like, when I was a PhD student, it was quite simple. It was like you're doing this project. This is what you're every day you turn up, you do this project, like that's fine. But now I'm involved in like many different projects and different collaborations, which is lovely, because they're all like different people across the world. And then Europe and Chile and all over the place. But it means that, you know, every day, I have to sort of switch my brain to another project. And I sometimes I went through a stage of kind of losing track of telecoms, and it really frustrated me. So now I know I have a system and it works perfectly. I make my week plan. And then I turned up to my meetings, and it's great.

Izzy  12:21

Where did you learn to code? Was it on your PhD, or were you self taught?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  12:25

in my undergraduate degree, we did some we had a, like a lab kind of thing where they taught us coding there. But I say I properly learned to, I properly sort of self taught it during a summer internship again during my undergrad. So that was an astronomy internship. And I was sort of thrown some data. And I had a there was a very helpful PhD student in the office who kind of sent me some of his code, and I kind of copied it and learn from that. But yeah, I'm actually, the coding language, I use Python now, which is super common. And I would highly recommend, if you want to do a bit of coding have a little play with Python, because it's quite, it's quite a nice one. I basically self taught that to myself, because I've all astronomers basically use Python. So people have written code to do certain things, and they put it online. And that's so helpful. You're like, Oh, I really need to load in this image from this telescope, and this other telescope, and overplot them with each other, which is surprisingly difficult because each telescope has a different, everything's different, like the pixels are different all this, then there's a code online to help you do that. So that's what I do these days.

Willow  13:25

Would you say as part of your jobs that you wish weren't a part of your job?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  13:33

Yeah, I mean, the field I work in, which is like looking at these really distinct galaxies, it's, it's really exciting, but it's also very competitive. So there's quite a lot of people around the world who are working on the same problems, they might be using slightly different data from a different telescope, or sometimes they're using the same data. And that can be really stressful, because I kind of, I kind of know, the moment that data is taken and put on the internet, that people are working on it. So you get this kind of like super stressful time where you're trying to be the first or at least you don't have to be the first but you kind of have to be aware that maybe one or two other people is going to do the same thing. So I find that quite stressful. But on the other hand, it does mean that the field is like very lively, you know, like people, people if you if you do something, and you know, go to a conference, people are really interested in it, which is really nice. So it's kind of like a double edged sword in a way.

Nia  14:25

So you want to do the opposite of that, then what's what do you find like the most rewarding part of your job? What do you enjoy most about it? 

Dr Rebecca Bowler  14:32

I really like solving problems. I like hard problems. I mean, you know, to get to get to like my level, you kind of have to want to solve problems because they're like, that's basically your job. And yeah,

that's what I really enjoy. Like, if I have a free day and something looks wrong, like you know, stuff goes wrong all the time in research, like in a lab or on my on my computer. If I can just spend a few hours and I can solve that problem and like somehow, you know, I fix I fix the… I’m try to think of an example like all my problems are quite boring but like I fix some problem with like the image alignment or something like this or, or I find a galaxy that I couldn't find before or like, that sort of thing is so satisfying. And it's like, I just love that. I out headphones on, and I just focus on trying to fix this problem. And then, you know, it might take a day, it might take a few hours. But once you once it works, you're like, Ah, so satisfying.

Izzy  15:23

You mentioned that you go to conferences or attend conferences, do you get to travel much with your work?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  15:29

Yes, I do. Yes, it's, it's changed a little bit with the pandemic. Of course, as of many things have, of course, I go to maybe two or three conferences a year. And they'll often be in Europe. When I was in my PhD, I went to America and I went to China, which was really… Oh, I went to Japan as well. So yeah, it's because it's such an international community. And also, a lot of the time, like, the reason I went to Japan is because the Japanese have this amazing telescope called Subaru. And so they organise these conferences every few years, which you know, is basically everyone goes there who uses who uses that telescope. And so it's really nice to be able to, like, travel to that place where this this amazing telescope has come from, and meet all those researchers who I wouldn't normally meet, you know, like, Japan is a long way away. But to actually meet the people that you have, like, read their work is really nice. So yeah, it's a quite a lot of travel.

Izzy  16:24

Girls, were you expecting to hear that Rebecca travelled a lot with her work?

Nia  16:28

No, not necessarily. Because I didn't quite realise that astronomy was so international, as Rebecca was saying. And that does quite… I find that quite interesting, because I like travelling and things like that. So I feel like you wouldn't think that astronomy is international, almost, you thought you were just looking at one place, and you can see everything.

Bea 16:51

I felt like being able to kind of share ideas as well with like, people across the world is really interesting. And to kind of create a community of like, with your research, because people are going to be researching near same things or near around in different countries. So that's really interesting, as well.

Izzy  17:06

Rebecca, why is it important to work collaboratively with international teams?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  17:11

It's just, there are so many brilliant people all over the world. And there's so many, so many facilities all over the world as well, like, like astronomy is based on having the best, the best telescope essentially, like particle physics is based on having the best, you know, like CERN, particle collider, but astronomy, it's about having the best telescope. But it's not just that it's about combining, combining your expertise with other people. That that is the best for science. So yeah, if we all worked independently, we were just, we were just never made the discoveries we've made. Because we need to work together, we need to combine our data together and combine our expertise together. And it's just, it's just such a fruitful thing, having these international collaborations, like it's hard to describe, but like you talk to someone, and they just have a different way of thinking. And you're like, oh, oh, right. I see now, it's just yeah, every week talking to people internationally, it's just, it's just such a joy. 

Nia  18:05

So do they like help you find out more about your discoveries, or like help you figure out your problems that you said you like, like, problem solving?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  18:15

Yeah, exactly. And they often have different expertise. So, for example, like the UK has a lot of history in infrared astronomy, the infrared is like the redder part of the spectrum while you're doing science. So you'll know this about the red apart from beyond the beyond what we can see. So we have an expertise like historically from that, whereas in the US, they haven't, they haven't been working on this so much, whether they have other expertise, like optical telescopes, and X ray telescopes and things like that. The fact that we can bring like decades of experience to these collaborations is like a real strength, and it makes the whole thing better, essentially,

Willow  18:54

Would you say, as a woman at university, you have to like fight to be taken seriously when you're doing your research? 

Dr Rebecca Bowler  19:02

Yeah that's, that's a good question. I was thinking about this. Because when I when I got sent the kind of possible questions that you could ask me. And to be honest, I didn't really think about it. At the time, I think I went to University of Cambridge and Cambridge, you have this college system. So you, so there were like 100 120 people in my year at physics, but it didn't feel that big, because I had this like, smaller group of people in my college that I, that were doing physics. And there were two other women there. So we're actually quite a high proportion, I think, like 50% women. So I just thought just kind of like just became like my normality at the time. I should say that at A level I was the only physics, girl in physics. But I had a female physics teacher. So she made me feel like super welcome. And she made me feel like it was very normal to do physics as a woman. So that and then my college experience, kind of I didn't really think about it too much, which was, which is really nice. But the only thing is, you do notice that all of the lecturers and all of the teachers are are in general men, so that was kind of a bit of a shock when I went to university I was like, oh, where's my lovely physics teacher?

Nia  20:08

Working at like Manchester, do you see like a diversity between, like men and women and all the different people there?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  20:16

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's one of the things that really drew me to University of Manchester and the city of Manchester is a really diverse place. And the university in particular, like they really care about, they really care about that. So I feel like it's a very accepting place, just from my experience, like in my department, it's a very, like welcoming and accepting place. There is about, I can't think of the percentage, but there are there are five female staff of which I'm one in the in 35 in astronomy, so I would say that's quite low. But they but they are, they are actively trying to change it, of the recent hires they have, they've mainly been women. So I feel like they realise it's a problem, and they're trying to change it. But it's just, that is, that's the only thing that slightly frustrates me. But in terms of the like, the student population and the researcher population, it's a really nice mixture of people.

Izzy  21:07

And what about diversity of ethnicities? Do you find that that's in the student and the staff population?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  21:17

Yeah the staff population, it's not very diverse in terms of ethnic minorities at all. Again, I'm just talking specifically about my kind of astronomy group, because there's physics and there's a whole university. So it's quite hard for me to judge that. And I've only been here a year. So it's quite hard to tell. But yeah, I'd say the staff are predominantly white, if, if not exclusively white, which it does not represent the student population. So it's definitely a definitely an issue.

Nia  21:52

So if you talk about how there's only about five out of 35 women, is there a gender pay gap in astronomy, or, to your knowledge, is it roughly the same for everybody?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  22:04

Yeah, so I did look this up. And according to the University of Manchester website, they have one of the lowest gender pay gaps of the higher education institutes in the UK. Now, it's still 11%, though, so it's still significant. Yeah. And I think it's quite hard to say, because the way that people are hired in astronomy, is quite opaque. Like, it's not very transparent, because there's a lot of negotiation that goes along. And it's all kind of behind closed doors. There's the job adverts always have a range of salaries, and it's kind of like, what they think you're worth and what you are prepared to push for. And so I had some very good advice. I think it's good advice, from a kind of a female professor when I was doing my do my PhD. Yeah. And she was telling us predominantly female researchers that you have to negotiate, you have to ask, because the worst thing that will happen is that they will say, No. I think a lot of people but more more often women are unwilling to ask for something if they don't think they're gonna get it. And it's uncomfortable, right? It's really uncomfortable, saying like, no, no, I want more money. Like it's not. Not Not many people find that comfortable. But she was very good at that. She just said, just ask for it. Like, what's the worst that will happen? The worst will happen is they'll say no. And I have done this, and I have negotiated my salary up, which is very satisfying. And it's mainly because I know that the men are doing it. So I want to also do it. Yeah. And actually, they do say yes, they might not say yes to the high offer, right, but they give you one or two kind of increases. And that is I think that's really important to know your worth and to know, just to ask for it. Even if they say no, it doesn't matter. You still asked right?

Nia  23:51

Yeah, it's better than because if you don't ask, you know, you'll never find out you might never know. 

Dr Rebecca Bowler  23:56

Exactly yeah, you're definitely not gonna get a pay increase if you don't ask for it, right.

Willow  24:00

Going back to the galaxies you found, do you have a favourite galaxy?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  24:07

I do have a favourite galaxy. It's called ID 304416. So I hope you remember that later. It was actually in my first ever publication like it was one of the first things I did in my PhD was find this galaxy. And we've just spent a lot of time going back to it because it's, it's one of the brightest that we have. The galaxies I'm looking at are very, very rare. And they're typically like, like little smudges in the data. They're very, they're very unremarkable in the data. But this one, when we went back to it, we went back to it with the Hubble Space Telescope, and we went back to it with a telescope called ALMA, which is just like huge array of telescopes in Chile. And it just gets more and more interesting. Like we found that it has like two big clumps that we think are merging together. And then it looks like some parts of the galaxy are hidden. So we didn't realise they were there before. But they were actually hidden by a screen of dust. So I talk to dust, talk about dust to people and they're like, What are you talking about, like dust in your house? But this is like like astronomy dust. It's cosmic dust. Yeah. So this is like, if you look at a picture of the Milky Way, you see like this dark stripes across, you've ever seen that. That's dust in the Milky Way, like, this is dust in my galaxy. And what it does is it like conceals one side of it. So we didn't know it was there. Yeah, so they have the dust in Milky Way. And then in this particular galaxy, which is my favourite galaxy, there's one half of it, which is completely covered by dust. And if this goes back to what I was saying about collaborating with different different people in different countries, using this telescope in Chile, we were able to see through the dust, and we found we found the kind of second half of this galaxy. And so it was just, it's just been a really nice continuation of my PhD work seeing this source in all these different wavelengths, and all these different components, like the stars, and the dust and, is really, really, yeah, it's my favourite. And I think it's really interesting.

Bea 26:06

Would you say, with your job that you get access to things like sick pay, and for people that would like to maternity leave, and things like that?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  26:14

Yeah, the University of Manchester has a has a policy on this. And so I do have access to that, like, as a staff member, I get time for maternity leave, I don't know what it is. But it's the kind of official one. The one issue with research is that it's kind of is based on grants. So I actually have my own grant, like a five year grant, which is just like a pot of money to pay me. And so they often have different different terms and conditions to the university would have. And they sometimes have a hard deadline at the end, which can be very difficult if you have a baby, because you can't, you want to extend but you can't. But fortunately, I'm paid by the UK Government. And they have very good maternity leave policies. So yeah, that's all fine. 

Willow  26:58

Apart from astronomy, do you have any other interest that you do outside of your work?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  27:08

I have a cat, me and my partner have a cat, which I was hoping she would appear but she hasn't. She's gone to sleep. Sometimes it's she's someone sits on the windowsill behind me. So I’m like having a very serious telecom. And then they're like, oh. But no, I think she's asleep. I'm also really into like being outside like walking and cycling, I do a lot of cycling. It's like my passion. So I went, I went cycling yesterday. And I just love that because you meet lots of people, and you get to go to really exciting places. And it's also like a great escape from work as well like sitting in front of my computer. Like inside. It's just nice to just go out and be in the countryside.

Nia  27:50

Do you work like a Monday to Friday, almost like a school day, and you have weekends free to do like your other interests? That's like…

Dr Rebecca Bowler  27:55

Yes, yeah, I have the weekends free. I try and work nine to five, like occasionally, as I said, like, there might be some telecom I have to go to an evening. But that's very rare. And I don't enjoy that. But it has to be done. Occasionally. Yeah.

Bea 28:09

Any advice you had for kind of our generation, the next generation wanting to go into STEM?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  28:14

I guess in general, my advice would be just kind of follow what you find interesting. I mean, STEM is such a huge field. And, you know, being a scientist, or being an engineer, or a mathematician or whatever. It's all about curiosity. And it's all about having a passion for something. And it's, I liked astronomy, but I made sure that when I was doing my physics degree that I explored other parts of physics as well and other parts of science because I wanted to, you know, it's all about learning, isn't it and all about and all about discovering things, and you never know what you might discover and suddenly realise, oh, that's actually really interesting. Maybe I should, maybe I should do that thing, you know. And what I found interesting as an undergraduate, was that a lot of people started off, really wanting to be Einstein, basically, we all… not all of us that some of us, a lot of people who did physics in Cambridge, they were like, I want to do theoretical physics, I want to be Stephen Hawking, I want to be Einstein. But what they found doing like natural sciences, and just doing their degree was that they all sort of split off. And actually, hardly anyone finished with a physics degree. Somebody decided that they really liked chemistry. Like someone said they liked material science or geophysics. So this this sort of thing, you know, like, you don't really know until you until you try it or until you read about it, what you what might be your passion. So I suppose I’ve kind of gone on a bit of a tangent, but have an open mind. And just like keep exploring and keep being curious.

Nia  29:45

So like, don't set your mind on one specific thing. Try and broaden your horizons by trying different things out as well?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  29:52

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because it's so varied, like people think there's one sort of scientist, that's not true at all. Like can people do lab work. Or some people do computer stuff. Some people like in the field as engineers, you know, there's all sorts of ways to be in STEM and you don't know. You don't know until you try these different things. What's going to be the best fit for you.

Nia  30:11

What qualifications did you need to get in GCSE to get into Cambridge?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  30:17

Yes, A levels. So it was like, Oh, I can't remember that. So we didn't have A*s back in my day. So it was a sad to have to get three A's, I think. Yeah, that's right to have three A's. And then we had the interview. So I had the had the interview, which was like, the most stressful thing I've ever done, I think especially at that, at that age, it was like, really terrifying. And also everyone was wearing suits. And I sort of turned up, I’d never worn a suit in my life. And I was just like, but anyway. Yeah, I think also, it helps that I had shown a kind of interest in science outside of that, like, I used to go to an astronomy society occasionally. And they had talks there, and they did a bit of observing. I mean, I have to say, I'm really not a very good astronomer, like, I really hate staying up late. I really hate standing in the cold. I mean, I don't think I would be a very good amateur astronomer. Like some people really love it. But I like to going and I like to sort of, yeah, going to the talks, and just like reading and talking, talking to my A level physics teacher as well. She was like, so passionate about physics. And she used to chat to me afterwards. So I think in terms of like qualifications, like, you know, try and try and do the best you can with your grades. But it's also about showing that little bit of interest or extra thing. Yeah, but I'm sure you get loads of career advice from your school anyway. But I think that helped me a little bit. You know, everyone's doing well, with their grades when you get to when you get to these levels, but it's about Yeah, showing that you're interested in it, and that you actually want to do it. You’re not just sort of ticking a box, like going to university kind of thing.

Bea 31:58

With going to Cambridge, did you see diversity in it being you know, Cambridge and Oxford are quite, they can be known for maybe not being so diverse. So just Yeah.

Dr Rebecca Bowler  32:10

What, So what sort of diversity do you mean?

Bea 32:13

Well we've talked about gender, but with ethnicities, and minorities and things.

Dr Rebecca Bowler  32:20

So so on the gender, it was about 20 to 25% women. So but as I said, I didn't really notice that because my college, the ethnic, ethnic diversity, I think it was not great as far as I can remember. But now, again, I don't think I really thought about it at the time. But this is something I think about quite a lot now, like equality, diversity. And you know, it's quite shocking when you think back. But the other thing I noticed about Oxford and Cambridge, the wealth diversity was quite a shock to me, because I came from like a state school and I just hadn't really thought about it. But when I went there, I just from certain conversations, and especially in like, PPE and other subjects and things like this, like it was a bit intense kind of this private school background that I hadn't really been exposed to, so that was a bit of a shock. I think it was, like 50% came from private schools. So it just wasn't something I was prepared for, I would say. And obviously, like Cambridge is quite like, traditional. So it was a lot of a lot to take in when I first arrived. But yeah, I would say, sorry, thinking about the ethnic diversity a bit more now. I would say that it was it was quite international so quite a lot of international students. So there was there were people from from different countries. So they say it was dominated by like, China, and India, that sort of thing. So there was some sort of ethnic diversity. But you know

Nia  33:42

Do you think that's sort of changing now with like, being in like, the 21st century? And like moving on, and trying to be more accepting of everybody? Do you think that's changing? Have you seen any changes in your university,

Dr Rebecca Bowler  33:54

I think Cambridge is trying very hard. I know they have more state school students now. So just on that side, I've been really impressed with Manchester, they have a kind of widening participation scheme where they're really trying to encourage people from essentially like, deprived areas of the city and the north west [of the UK]. And that comes with it some more diversity in ethnic background as well, which is really nice to see. I just really hope that those students can can feel supported in the university because I know that's an issue, is that it’s all very well getting people into university but they often like black students, for example, can then be the only black student in their course. And that's very, very challenging for them. So I really hope that it's kind of like a tipping point that if we get more people in from a more diverse background, but then they will they will feel more welcome and feel like it's their place as well. But yeah, I can see things changing. I think it could be a bit faster. But that's always true.

Willow  34:50

With astronomy, does that have any link to things like climate change, and what you can see the stars reflecting that?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  35:01

It doesn’t have, I guess, a direct link to sort of saving the planet. Like scientifically but I think that there is a there's a strong consensus this kind of there's no planet B kind of feeling within astronomers, there's a campaign called No Planet B, which astronomers have signed up to. And this is really using our knowledge of astronomy and of the solar system to say, I really like there's no second chance here, like the Earth is incredibly unique, and special. And so that's, that's one side. The other side is we now have studied a lot of planets around other stars. So these extrasolar planets. And so that then feeds into this knowledge that our solar system is really quite special, and quite unique. So again, like we really, really shouldn't mess this up. It's a really special place, but it also makes, the more the more you do astronomy, and think about the universe, the smaller, it makes you feel. And I think it can really put in perspective a little bit how special we are, and what a special earth we have. And really, we should take better care of it.

Izzy  36:06

Rebecca, you mentioned that your grandpa was an architect and you've talked to lots about your physics teacher. Yeah, it was important for you to have a positive role models when you were growing up?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  36:17

Definitely. I think I was very lucky in that my parents were very supportive of like, wherever I wanted to do. They didn't… I talk to some people and say, Oh, I do physics and they kind of look at me in horror. Like, you know, why are you doing that? That's really unusual. You're the only girl and all this but my family were very supportive and they just wanted me to do well in whatever I whatever I, was my passion, I guess. And yeah, my grandpa was an architect's, he worked as an architect, but he was also a lecturer in Nottingham University. And so I think I had that kind of family understanding of like academia and universities. And so when I said I wanted to do a PhD, they were like, Oh, that's great, you know, so that was really, really helpful in my career, yeah.

Izzy  37:01

Completely different question. Do you ever go to the Jodrell Bank Telescope?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  37:05

I sometimes cycle past it on my cycles. But not not for work. But we actually went last week to the observatory for like a sort of team building exercise. So every year the whole department goes there. And so we had a group photo in front of the telescope and quite a lot of staff work in both the University in the centre and also at the sites, but I work just in university, but so so not scientifically, but for kind of like social events and to visit, then it's a lovely place to visit. If you ever get to go there it’s really nice.

Izzy  37:39

Girls, do you know the Jodrell Bank Telescope? Do you know what it is, what I’m talking about?

Nia  37:44

I haven't heard of that one. No, I mean, I felt like the Hubble one. And those ones, I think maybe the bigger ones. But what’s, what's that?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  37:51

The Jodrell Bank is, is in Cheshire, it's like just south of Manchester. And it's a historic radio telescope. I think it was built in the 50s. Probably gonna get told off for getting the dates wrong. But it's got a long history, but there's a very large telescope called the Lovell telescope there. And several smaller ones. So it's a working radio telescope. Yeah, so it's really, really well known radio telescope operating in the UK. It's kind of where my department used to be. But then as they got more involved in the university, we moved into the centre of town. But there's a there's a visitor centre, which is really good. And they also do this blue dot festival every year, which is like a music and Science Festival, which is really, really cool.

Izzy  38:30

Can you recommend any resources for anyone who's interested in astronomy? To find out more about it? So any books or TV shows or social media accounts or anything else?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  38:41

Yes. So my favourite book when I was a teenager was about science was called The Magic Furnace by Marcus Chown. And this is a book about how like, different elements are formed in the centre of the sun. And it's like connects like chemistry and physics and astronomy and I really, really liked that when I was a teenager. I'm a bit out of date with podcasts. I really like The Life Scientific which is probably like slightly for older people, but that's really nice. It's on BBC Radio 4. Sorry, it's for like really old people.

Izzy  39:12

Is that the one with Jim Al Khalili?

Dr Rebecca Bowler  39:13

Yeah, so The Life Scientific is like, yeah, they interview scientists. It's so interesting, because you get to hear their like life, as well as their discoveries that really brings the person out and they you know, they say, Oh, I had a baby. And that's why I didn't do this discovery. Like it's really, really interesting.

Izzy  39:27

Thank you for joining another STEM Untapped podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, then subscribe for free on your podcast app. You can follow us on Instagram @STEMuntapped. If you know of a school or group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models do get in touch. Likewise, if you know of anyone who would be a great role model then let us know. Our details are all documented in the show notes.