[00:00:00] Hello, the Northern Power Women Podcast for your career and your life, no matter what business you're in.
[00:00:26] Hello, and welcome back to the Northern Power Women podcast. This is the podcast that celebrates the powerful and exciting contributions being made to the world of work across our own northern power women community and beyond.
[00:00:38] And the podcast is about bringing together the lived experience and key leadership insight of our brilliant people out there across a wide range of sectors and a wide range of levels to inspire and motivate you to go on and reach your goals. And this episode is episode two of our special three part box set in partnership with the Institute of Physics, whose Limit Less campaign is about supporting young people to change the world, fulfil their potential by doing physics, and challenge that stereotypical view of what a physicist looks like.
[00:01:09] So, absolutely delighted to welcome Katherine Platt back to episode two to join me. So Katherine here at Northern Power Women and the Power Collective, we care a lot about the future of young people. And that's why we created our Power Up networking to raise aspirations of young talent, empower them to change the world and welcome them into a world they don't know or wouldn't really feel like they since they belong in.
[00:01:31] And so that's why we were really delighted to support the Institute of Physics Limit Less campaign. The goals are civil, aren't they? We're aligned in our values in this.
[00:01:39] Katherine Platt: Yeah, we're so beautifully aligned. This podcast. Makes so much sense especially because you are Northern Power women.
[00:01:47] In the North we see lots of industries that require physics skills, so there's a huge range. Construction, engineering, health, transport, and then some ones that you might not expect. Law, skilled trades, so many jobs in the north and across the UK and Ireland require physics skills. We've actually, at the Institute of Physics, done some research and we know that one in 20 jobs in the UK and Ireland require physics skills and we don't have in the UK and Ireland enough young people coming through to fill those jobs. There's a huge opportunity there for young people, particularly young people from backgrounds underrepresented in physics, to have really rewarding and fulfilling and well paid jobs in the future. And we want to tell those young people, That physics is for them and that there are huge opportunities through physics.
[00:02:46] Simone Roche: And on the other side, we've talked about inclusion and diversity. What does having that diverse talent pool do for the world of physics as well?
[00:02:54] Katherine Platt: Yeah. Well, we know at the Institute of Physics that diversity is incredibly important. For business and we know that employers really, really care about diversity and equality and inclusion as well.
[00:03:07] And the Limit Less campaign ties in with this really beautifully. So some of the benefits to employers ,It increases the range of thoughts that you have going into your business. We know that diverse businesses are more productive. We know that supporting your local community helps you to recruit in the future.
[00:03:27] And that diverse talent pool, just from the social justice point of view, which is what the Limit Less campaign really is. The social justice motivation to make sure that you are supporting your local, regional community of young people to change the world. That's also really important.
[00:03:44] Simone Roche: Thanks so much, Katherine.
[00:03:46] And now let's get into episode two, which is unlikely career roots into physics. And in this episode, we're going to be featuring two hugely passionate physicists, journalists amongst many other things. Diane Reid and Royal Navy Commander Nicola Cripps, whose careers have both taken an unusual turn from what is considered the normal following their physics degrees.
[00:04:08] But nevertheless, they've both been able to make use of their skills they've gained from studying physics to excel in their careers and become the true role models and storytellers that they are. Firstly, we'll hear from Diane Reed who studied chemical physics as a degree before moving on to studies in charity governance, you'll hear Diane discuss the life skills that she grained from her curious mind and how physics has played a part in the last 20 years of her portfolio of work.
[00:04:37] Diane Reid: I studied physics because I was good at math. I was curious. I wasn't a typical scientist. I didn't know any women who were scientists, and I wanted to change that. And the reason I did science was I wanted to be a science journalist. That was my motivation. I had a kind of passion that science would be used for good, but I felt that people, ordinary people just should be able to understand and make informed decisions about technical things. So for me it was always about physics and communication. At least that was my starting point. So I studied chemical physics at Surrey University, and it was a really broad course. I studied basic physical science, electronics, vibrations and waves, organic chemistry, crystallography, computer programming. And the last one, slightly strange one, archaeometry, which was the physics of archaeology. So it was a really broad chemical physics course. I wouldn't say I was the most brilliant chemical physicist there, but I still call myself a chemical physicist, and I really enjoyed it.
[00:05:38] Just thinking about how my physics qualification worked in my career. Just thinking about TV for the moment, you are also at the heart of innovation. So working for the BBC, I was part of the team that, the board that did the move to Salford to Media City in that we had the Future Media Department, BBC Sport, BBC Children's, and a whole load of other areas.
[00:06:06] And also we had to produce the TV for the 2012 Olympics. If you saying you've got to build an entire broadcast setup around the Olympics, you're able to say what that meant in technical terms, and it's a really big achievement and I don't think you almost appreciate how big the achievement was without physics at the root of that. In a sort of bigger picture way one of the things about doing physics was just understanding data, so you could apply that to audience figures. For example, if you get loads of statistics and you're trying to understand who watches TV programs and why and how they like it, actually your physics helps you with that. And also just, just the idea about trying innovative things, experimenting, that's been underpinned everything I've done. And I think just that ability and desire to think lots of different ways means that you can have new ideas and that you are valued for your new ideas. That's really important. If I pull together some of the one thing that probably that came out of physics for me would be curiosity.
[00:07:15] So people talk about different careers and lots of different types of career advice. You know, make sure you get feedback, make sure you get a mentor, look after yourself, and I agree with all of those. But for me, I would say curiosity. So curiosity helps you extend your comfort zone. So the kind of acquiring mind that you have for physics means that you are always looking at something new.
[00:07:42] You're trying to understand things outside the things you understand already, and that gives you a kind of approach of continuous improvement. You can apply to yourself and others. You are always curious to know more and how can that make me better at my job and how can I do my job better for others?
[00:08:00] When you're a scientist, you learn how to be non-judgmental and a critical thinker . You look at facts, you make decisions. You're open to different interpretations. You're prepared to test ideas, and that means you make better decisions yourself and you'll make a strong contribution to any joint decisions.
[00:08:20] And this is really important whether you are a team putting together a project, or if you are a company director or a board director, you have that ability to question things and really make sound decisions. The other thing I'd say is to go with your physics, you learn how to be a good communicator.
[00:08:42] You'll always stand out in any scientific community and your work will have more impact if you could share it and if you think about that, an interest in what someone else does and what they say, which is part of the inquiry of being a physicist and just the ability to listen and watch, observe really carefully if you've got, if you do that with the intent to learn and understand, that's a really great gift to the person you are talking to.
[00:09:13] But it's also a great gift to yourself because you'll be so much richer by taking that approach to your work. . One of the really important things to me about physics is the, just the wonder and the awe that you get, how completely amazing things are. Just when I studied, I studied crystallography, and that is the most incredibly beautiful thing, or maths, that's just amazing.
[00:09:37] And so when you study that, it gives you an extraordinary insight you can look at, the condensation trail in the air behind an airplane. And you can understand how the airplane works and you can understand how it makes that amazing pattern behind you. Or you can look at the colour of a TV picture and you think actually that's made up of, of different kind of waves, vibrations, and you could put filters on it.
[00:10:03] I'm involved with an art charity now, and I might look at a grand master. And people will be looking at the content and I'll be looking at the, it might be a beautiful portrait, and I would look at that, but actually I'm looking at the colour temperature. I'm looking at the framing, I'm looking at the pattern.
[00:10:21] And all of those things are to do with my kind of physics influenced brain. You just see beauty in a very, very different way. And that's just an extraordinary privilege and it's because at that early stage, my eyes were open to a completely different way of thinking about things creatively and in terms of what you bring to the jobs that you do.
[00:10:43] Simone Roche: Such a brilliant and varied career path from Diane and fantastic to hear how physics has impacted that area of her life. Next, we spoke to Commander Nicola Cripps, who serves in the Royal Navy. And this episode is all about unlikely career roots into physics. So it is fascinating to hear about Nicola's journey, where it started from, and actually where physics has absolutely come into practice, whether it be training new recruits and whether it's been part of the Majesty's funeral, actually, it's been part of so many parts of her world.
[00:11:16] And where she kind of brings that compassion that she says is related to physics and how she really nurtures that curious mind, which we've heard a lot of in this box set. Enjoy the listen.
[00:11:27] Nicola Cripps: I went to an all-girls comprehensive school and was always very good at maths, very curious about life, about people, about how things worked.
[00:11:35] I was always good at solving problems and always liked seeing patterns in the world and, and the links between them. Physics wasn't a very popular subject in an all-girls school. I think often it still isn't, but actually I studied it at G C S E, at a level and then I went on to university and studied for a master's in physics.
[00:11:53] And throughout that whole journey, it always allowed me to go after all those things that made me happy, that curiosity in life, in people, in how things worked. I was also, turns out much, found out much later on that I was dyslexic and still am and therefore approached things possibly in a subtly different way to some people.
[00:12:15] But physics allowed me to understand the world, to understand how things happened, why they happened, and then allowed ultimately me to predict things in the future. I think when I think about where it, I thought it might take me, it was always about making sure I left as many doors open as possible and for me that physics is probably the greatest key to unlocking the most doors.
[00:12:37] I thought about it at the time and I could have gone into engineering anything from mass and accountancy to being what I decided as you know, that deep scientist. But I knew that it wasn't just about that it was going to open far more doors and keep a broad area open. Whilst I was at the university, I managed to do a university placement and I went and did accident investigation and reconstruction.
[00:13:00] Working with the team at the Transport Research Laboratory where they do crash test dummies. It's where they use the crash test dummies to test cars and then investigate serious road accidents. And it was fascinating because I could use all of those skills I'd learned throughout school and university in a real science-based area.
[00:13:20] But actually that led me to think about what I wanted to do further and longer term, and I knew that variation, much like I enjoyed in my physics lessons of the different types of experiments and finding out lots of different things. I thought about that actually I'd won a varied career and so chose to join the Royal Navy, which probably isn't the most obvious choice from studying physics.
[00:13:42] But actually it allowed me to draw on lots of the areas that I'd already encountered and apply it to real world scenarios. So it was a perfect key to open in that door for me. And 18 years later, I'm still in the Royal Navy. So really it did take me where I hoped it would.
[00:13:59] Within my career, I come across all kinds of, of people from all kinds of backgrounds. And when we go to sea in ships in the Royal Navy, or when we deploy abroad, we go in teams and regularly we take a village of people. We take a chef, a doctor an engineer, a technician, somebody that does the pay, somebody that writes up reports. We take a whole swathe of different types of people, and we come together as a team.
[00:14:27] And having people in that team that can understand both what we are trying to do and how we're going to do it has a huge impact for the way that team comes together. And so understanding how things work, how people work, how people interact, how people connect is hugely beneficial. And when I look at my friends and colleagues, I know some of them also have deep physics backgrounds, and you see a similarity amongst them.
[00:14:56] You see people that are naturally curious, but that curiosity often then lends itself into compassion and often passion about what they do and how they do it. Last year I was actually privileged enough to be involved in her Majesty to Queens funeral in London, and In natural fact, I was part of the gun carriage that the Royal Navy drew through the streets of London and we had 150 sailors that we came together and in 10 days we formed a team. We practiced a lot, we did overnight rehearsals. We marched through London at two o'clock in the morning practicing for that main event. And whilst I could talk to you about the things that directly on physics, listening to the beat of the drum as it, it bounced off the various walls in, in across horse guards. And through the tunnels and the effect that that has, I could probably also talk to you about the additional effort that it took to pull the gun carriage up the incline that is Constitution Hill. But actually the skills that I took from my studies of physics, from university, from working with other people of like-mindedness allowed me to connect with my team, allowed me to be that curious individual who could display compassion and understanding of those around us to be able to get done what the task was in hands.
[00:16:17] And so keeping those doors open. Keeping those skills alive is something that I would commend you to encourage any youngsters that you come across really to embrace, to take the opportunities and to reach their potential as, as best they can.
[00:16:33] Simone Roche: Thanks so much, Nicola. It was great to hear everything that you have to say about what physics is and everything that it is with us.
[00:16:40] It's been incredible to hear how you can build skills that we don't necessarily associate with the subject itself at all.
[00:16:47] Has this episode got you interested in physics or do you think someone you know should hear about it? Please do share this episode far and wide. I love this episode. I loved hearing about the different angles and the unlikely careers that you can have from the world of physics.
[00:17:01] So has this episode got you interested? Do you think someone that you know should hear about it, then please do share. You can join the Institute of Physics Limit Less campaign, which is a campaign to support young people to change the world and fulfil their potential by doing physics visit iop.org. And of course all of the information will be in our show notes.
[00:17:21] And don't forget to check out the webinar as well that we've hosted as well, which is all about having this conversation. Thanks so much for joining in on our Institute of Physics Box set. This is the Northern Power Women podcast, a what goes on media production.