071. From Keeping the Lights on to Space Exploration: My Life in Nuclear

This month the FastForward podcast is dedicated to amazing women. In February we lost a phenomenal mathematical mind at the age of 101. Katherine Johnson’s precise calculations made space travel possible. With little more than a pencil and a slide rule she plotted the exact trajectories that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969. Yet, for decades afterwards almost no one knew her name.  

We know that there is a gender imbalance in STEM fields and that one way to address this problem is to have visible and positive role models. It’s one of the areas the British Science Week, which runs from the 6th - 15th March, is focusing on. The ‘Smashing Stereotypes' campaign encourages STEM employees to share their stories about what they do in their day-to-day work.  

Zara Hodgson joins Trish to do just that. She's the universities lead at the National Nuclear Laboratory and shares her career pathway which has allowed her to work on projects which involve exploring the depths of the ocean to outer space. 

Host: Patricia Keating
Guests: Zara Hodgson, National Nuclear Laboratory https://www.nnl.co.uk/
Listening Time:  42 mins
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