Bitesize Episode: Dr Sarah Moller - Air Pollution Theme Leader, Knowledge Exchange and Senior Research Fellow

In this bitesize podcast episode, the our student interviewers Assia and Gloria are going to introduce you to Dr Sarah Moller, an Air Pollution Theme Leader, Knowledge Exchange and Senior Research Fellow at the University of York. If you'd like to find out more about Sarah's work keep an eye out for the extended interview which will be released in a couple of weeks.

Some resources that Sarah recommends are:
National Centre for Atmospheric Science - website, news and Twitter
Dr Gary Fuller on Twitter and writing for the Guardian
The Naked Scientists podcast on Spotify and 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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Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website

Transcript

Izzy  00:00

Hi, I'm Izzy, host of the stem untapped podcast this week, our students Assia and Gloria are going to be interviewing Dr. Sarah Moller. Sarah is an Air Pollution Theme Leader, Knowledge Exchange and Senior Research Fellow at the University of York.

Dr Sarah Moller  00:18

I’m Sarah. I'm a senior research fellow at the University of York. And one of the organisations that funds me is the National Centre for Atmospheric Science. And the work that I do is all around air pollution. I'm a chemist by background. But yeah, I now focus on air pollution. And actually, the work that I do a lot now doesn't have all that much to do with the core chemistry that I originally did. It's more around how we communicate science well with policymakers, and how we design science that actually meets the questions that policymakers have. So when they need to know things, how do we make sure that the science that we're doing now is going to be able to help them answer the questions they might have both now and years down the line, once the science that we're doing has developed into something that they can actually use. So I do a lot of work, talking between the research community and policymakers. But I do do still some research myself. Hopefully, that is mostly policy relevant, quite a bit around thinking about the bigger picture. So not just thinking about how a change that's aimed at changing air pollution will affect air pollution. But actually, how might changes in other areas also impact air pollution?

Gloria 01:42

What made you want to pursue a career in STEM? Do you have any role models that inspired you?

Dr Sarah Moller  01:47

It's a really interesting question. So I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do when I was at school. GCSE level, I did quite a broad range of subjects, including music, I did a couple of languages. I did all three sciences. So I did quite a broad range of subjects. And I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And I was given some advice at the time, that one, I was good at science and two, that it had quite good career prospects, because I think the other way I was heading was that I was really interested in art. And I was told it was a brilliant thing to do. But you have to be really committed to it. And it's potentially a harder road than science potentially. And so for me, because I really enjoyed science, I ended up doing chemistry, physics and maths plus philosophy for my A levels. And so then I'd really already chosen that I was going to go into a science career. I think my chemistry teacher helped with the fact that I was happy to go down that route to having had this sort of career discussion, because he, Dr. John Timney, he was really inspirational in the way that he taught chemistry, because he didn't just tell us about the things we had to know. He told us things about what he'd done when he was at university as a researcher, he told us some interesting stories about scientists from the past, that actually got me interested in the way that science is done in science in general, not just learning the things that I have to do to pass the exams.

Izzy 03:16

Girls, what's it like for you at your school? Have you heard similar things from your teachers that perhaps it might be harder to go in to like arts and stuff, or that careers are easier to find in STEM. What are you being told now?

Gloria 03:30

I think we're being encouraged to pursue a career in STEM, I think our school’s been really encouraging us.

Izzy 03:44

Sarah, do you think that having a role model, like your chemistry teacher is really important in getting people into STEM?

Dr Sarah Moller  03:50

I think having somebody, I don't think it has to be necessarily a role model, but somebody who really sparks your interest, even if it's not something sort of in that core space of Oh, that's really what I want to do. Because I think like I was saying, right the way, even through university, I wasn't sure I was going to stay in STEM, I had no idea what I wanted to do, I was still interested in communicating with others, and perhaps doing something more creative. But I actually think that having people who keep sparking your interest, so when you're thinking about what am I going to do next? It's not that I've made a planned decision to stay in academia, it's actually the exciting opportunities have come along. And people have spoken to me about them in a way that's made me think I really want to do that. And so it's lots of little steps along the way, where people being able to present something in a way that talks to me and the things that I care about, is what sort of inspired me to go into and stay in STEM.

Assia 04:51

What is like typical general average day in your work life?

Dr Sarah Moller  04:55

Yeah, so I, while I work at a university, where actually a lot of people spend most of their day split between the laboratory doing experiments and in the office, I actually spent all of my day pretty much sat in front of a computer. And quite a lot of my day is spent reading emails and responding to them, or sat in meetings, talking to people. And so for me, it's really important that those meetings that I'm having are about things that I'm really interested in. Because I spend a lot of my time talking and listening. One of the things that I maybe like best is that I have probably at least once a month, maybe a couple of times a month, events where it's a lot more interactive, and it's a bit more of a workshop. And so you're actually discussing issues with people, and you're hearing people's perspectives, and you're giving them your perspective as a scientist. And those I think are the events that I that I really enjoy. But often they're more of a sort of a one off events that are scattered around my calendar rather than every day. And yeah, so I spend, I spend a lot of time either in in-person meetings, or in meetings over zoom, talking to people. And then I guess the rest of my time is spent putting together documents often to either communicate things that we've talked about to other audiences, or to make sure that we can agree that what we've talked about has been summarised in a way that everybody thinks is correct. So some of that is about, you know, effectively communicating what we've done onto paper and in a way that that is useful to send out to people. So I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the way that I'm going to write things and how I'm going to follow up on the activities we've had. So I do have sort of, try and have bits of time in my day where I can sit down and think about what comes next. What's the next strategic thing that I need to do to continue this activity and to make it have an impact?

Gloria 06:51

As Assia and I both hope to go to university, we're currently stressed with personal statements. But we were wondering, is there anything you wish you knew before going to university, anything you would do differently?

Dr Sarah Moller  07:06

I guess one of the things might be not to imagine that you have to have your whole career life planned out. I don't think I did. And I really worried that I might not have made the right choice about what subject to do. And that I didn't know what I wanted to do at the end of my degree. And it was something that caused me quite a lot of worry that lots of other people seem to have, I really want to do this, or I really want to do that. And actually, there are so many opportunities out there that I'm aware of now that I had no idea people did jobs in that that actually, I think coming towards the end of your degree or even before you go, talking around doing a bit of research, trying to find out the kinds of jobs that exist. There's a huge variety of things that mean that you don't have to make a decision really early on about what you want to do, you can wait and see what excites you at the time. So yeah, I think that that's probably the biggest thing that I wish I'd known. At the end of my degree, I wish I'd known to look around more, or the opportunities that are out there. Not that I wish I'd done something different. But just I feel like there's so many more things I could have thought about that I didn't even know could be a career.

Gloria 08:18

This is both related to I think, work and university with the idea of not stressing out too much. How do you find ways to manage your work life while also finding the time to enjoy yourself?

Dr Sarah Moller  08:34

I'm perhaps not the best at it. Because I really love what I do at work. And I hate leaving things unfinished. So I quite often take quite a bit of work, I sort of think about work quite a bit in my home life. But for me, I think the more that I've got into environmental science and talking to environmental scientists, the more interested and engaged I've become with nature and things. And so actually, I find that taking a bit of time out, even if I'm having just a really stressful day, and it's lunchtime, taking a bit of time out to get outside and sit somewhere a bit green go somewhere a bit green, makes a big difference to my mindset, and how productive I can be. So at weekends, I like to at least make some time to get outdoors and just go for a walk, do something in the forest somewhere green, do something somewhere where there's a bit of green space, sit in a park, to give me that bit of time where I can actually chill out and not really think about very much but just enjoy the nature and all the rest of it. And I think that really helps with allowing me to be more productive in in what I do. So I guess you both said that you're interested in geography, is there anything in particular in geography that really excites you?

Gloria 09:45

I've always been intrigued by the social sciences and I always enjoyed the interaction between geography and everyday life and how it applies to things are currently going on. It's very dynamic in nature, it's constantly changing. It's constantly researching geography and how it's always changing. It's always in the news now, especially the climate change. So I’ve always been interested in geography. 

Assia 10:12

I think I prefer the physical geography so like learning about physical processes, volcanoes, tectonics and whatnot. And I'm also really interested in environmental science and climate change. And also like, like kind of what you do which is getting people more aware that because I feel like people just don't care enough.

Dr Sarah Moller  10:32

I think that bit, I didn't do geography even at GCSE and I really wish that I had because I think now I see how much of the stuff, that social science side, along with the physical science side is really quite powerful in how we talk to people about science, in how we, for environmental science, it's so important. And actually, those two bits of the same, in your opinion of the same subject, actually are really important to happen alongside each other and having awareness of what goes on. You know, as a social scientist, having an awareness of what goes on in the physical sciences. And in a physical scientists being aware of what social scientists are doing and working with them allows us to do far more than if we try and do it in isolation. It's quite nice that both of you are here, but one’s gotten interested in the social science side, and one’s got an interest in the more physical side.

Assia 11:24

So one thing about school is that it's all like, it's either science or it's the arts, it's really separated. I feel like when you go out into the work world, everything sort of links, and there isn't really a clear distinction between the two. It's all very interdisciplinary.

Izzy 11:44

Sarah are there any resources like social media accounts, or magazines or TV programmes that students who are interested in atmospheric sciences and chemistry in general and everything that you do, could look at to learn more?

Dr Sarah Moller  11:59

So I was having to think about this. And I was gonna recommend something which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore, which I'm really gutted about, but the centre that I worked for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, they on their homepage and ncas.ac.uk, they have a news part and actually keeping track of the news on there, they put up some interesting some interesting things about climate, air pollution and high impact weather, global change from an atmosphere perspective. So they have some really interesting news articles on there. And they also have a Twitter account, which is @AtmosScience. Then also on Twitter, there's somebody called Gary Fuller. And he writes articles for The Guardian called pollution watch. And those articles are quite interesting. He's an active researcher himself. But so he gives a, if you like, a scientific perspective, but he writes for The Guardian, so he knows about writing for public audiences. So they're, they're often quite a good resource to look at, I think, for being interested in science in general, The Naked Scientists podcast can be really interesting. It's not by any means focused on environmental science. It's right across the board, but I think they do quite a good job of doing some really interesting stuff.

Izzy  13:15

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.