The following is a piece written by Jane Elith, the author highlighted in our first International Women’s Day article. Dr Elith also won the Recognition of Achievement for a Research Paper award for Methods in Ecology and Evolution in 2014 (you can read her full paper here).

 We asked Jane: what drew you to a career in science?

I’ve always loved nature, and at school found I was better at science than other subjects. Obvious choices for university would have been Quantitative Ecology or Conservation Biology, but back in the early 1970s such courses didn’t exist in Melbourne. I decided on a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) – science, but focused on trees. However that wasn’t to be – the Head of Forestry advised me that there was no future for women in Forestry. By memory, his reasoning was that there were no facilities for women in the field and entrenched attitudes amongst foresters would make it impossible to get a job. I can’t quite believe, looking back, that I accepted that and changed tracks. But I did.

Continue reading “My Career in Science (and Elsewhere)”