Zoё Fleming

There were just a handful of us specialising in Environmental Chemistry and apart from the optional courses in second year, we pretty much did the same as a straight Chemistry class mates until our penultimate year of the MChem, where we did three projects that involved taking samples during field work before analysing them in the laboratory. I enjoyed my MChem thesis, which I did with an external supervisor in the Cntre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) in Penicuik, looking into the effects of acid rain on trees. Joining the Edinburgh University Mountaineering club allowed me to have adventures at weekends and visit amazing places in the Highlands and I also travelled a lot with the university basketball club, where we actually were crowned British University Champions in my first year and Scottish University champions every year.

I was unsure if I wanted to do a PhD after university but I was sure I wanted to rack up some more field work, so I got a part-time laboratory assistant job in the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemunde, Germany and taught English. One day I was asked if I could help on an a research cruise in the Arctic Ocean and two weeks later I headed out on  Swedish Ice breaker and helped on many research projects for 2 months. It was great to be a helper and dog´s body, as I got a glance at various different areas of research and I started to realise that I was interested in Atmospheric Chemistry. Just over a year after graduating I started a PhD at the University of Leicester, measuring peroxy radicals, the precursors of ozone, in the atmosphere. At the end of my third year of my PhD, the only other research group (Imperial College London) with the same instrument needed a post doc to take the same measurements in Antarctica, so I headed off to Halley Research station whilst still writing up my thesis whilst on the boat to the frozen continent. After that amazing experience I needed to take a break from science and worked as a research assistant at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, something that really taught me about communication and being intentional in what you want to get across to people. 

I then took on a couple more post Doctoral roles before getting a position at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), based at the University of Leicester. A sudden turn in my personal and professional life came when I decided to move to Santiago, Chile in 2018. I am now a lecturer in Environmental Science and Sustainability and a lot of my research is involves participatory monitoring of the environment with local communities and the use of low cost sensors.

I am a firm believer that volunteering and working as an assistant in your potential “dream job” is the way to go – most of my work has come from getting in touch with the organisations or people I feel I would like to work with. Take as many opportunities to learn about different workplaces and contact people out of the blue if you believe you can contribute. The knowledge you gain at university needs to be combined with how you feel you want to contribute to the world. I was lucky enough to go to the Arctic and Antarctic but that was also because I had my radars on, looking and listening for opportunities. I look back with a lot of nostalgia at my time at Edinburgh University, and even though the world has changed a lot since then, going back to visit, I feel like I will always still have a close bond to my Alma Mater.