Alison McLure tells Marlene Rau about her adventurous life as a physicist – from being a TV presenter and forecasting the weather in the Antarctic to taking gap-year students on an expedition to an island in the South Atlantic.

To Alison, real-life problems have always been the most appealing ones in science, particularly if finding a solution to them will make a difference. When she was young, Alison learned about the applicability of science first-hand: she used to sail a lot, and physics helped her to understand how the sails and the weather worked. This understanding of the intricacies of the weather also led Alison to her first job as a meteorologist with the Met Office^w1. At that time, the Met Office liked to train its own people, so you didn’t need a degree in meteorology. Alison joined straight after graduating, hoping to do something practical, rather than conducting research. Ironically, she was posted to a research lab to start with: “Luckily, the research was to do with measuring the weather in extreme environments, so I got to put experimental automatic weather stations on top of mountains and on ocean buoys.”

Those were exciting times: besides ending up on screen, Alison was offered the chance of a six-month secondment to the British Antarctic Survey^w2. She was lucky enough to pass the interview and after a month’s preparation, spent five fantastic months working at Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. Forecasting the weather in such an extreme environment was incredibly challenging, but Alison still managed to make time to climb, ski and watch the amazing wildlife. “Rothera is next to the sea on the Antarctic Peninsula, so it is not on the ice cap, which is all ice and snow and no wildlife. I went during the Antarctic summer, our winter, so I had three summers in a row. The base was pretty basic, but everything you needed was there. They had professional cooks, a library and a bar, and social evenings were arranged. During the day, all of us had our own jobs to do, and I was impressed by everyone’s professionalism. There were around 50 people on the base at the time – it’s busy in their summer and minimal staff in winter. I was the only woman there for most of the time, and living with so many men had its moments.

After ten years of the weather, Alison decided it was time for a change – in fact, quite a number of changes over the years. First, she worked as joint manager of a marina in the west of Scotland: “The marina had just been taken over by a new owner, and they were looking for new staff. Although I had no experience in working for a business, I persuaded them that I would learn quickly. Also, the yachties loved the fact that I would give them personal forecasts and knew a fair bit about boats. The job involved all sorts of things, from fixing and launching boats, and maintaining the infrastructure of the marina, to doing the books and accounting forecasts and making strategic decisions on the direction of the business.”

Three years later, Alison became a policy officer with the Scottish Government^w3 in the Environment and Rural Affairs Department, a position she held for another three years.

However, working as the National Officer for the Institute of Physics in Scotland doesn’t leave time for boredom. “One day I might be talking to a member of the Scottish Parliament, and the next I could be making solar cookers with a class of students,” enthuses Alison. Her job involves organising events for members of the Institute of Physics in Scotland and promoting physics to anyone who will listen. “It would be great if I could show people what a great and fascinating time you can have if you take physics, at any level,” Alison says.

The main challenge that scientists face, according to Alison, is one of image: “People either think you are too clever by half, or that you must be like a cartoon scientist. Admitting to being a physicist isn’t really the best chat-up line, unfortunately. I think people struggle to understand what scientists do in their day-to-day job. Perhaps it is up to us to make ourselves more visible to the public. I certainly receive great feedback when I give talks about my time working in the Antarctic and the science that goes on there.

Alison doesn’t stop at hopes and words – she also takes action. In 2007, she was Chief Scientist on a British Schools Exploring Society (BSES)^w6 expedition to the small island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. “We surveyed penguin colonies, monitored glaciers, did plant surveys and meteorological readings, as well as general exploring and climbing mountains. BSES wanted to set up a project for gap-year students along with HMS Endurance^w7, the UK Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship, and they agreed to support the project for five years, so that we could gather some meaningful data, rather than a snapshot of one year, which has limited value. There were 18 young explorers between 18 and 22 years old, and six leaders. Each year, there will be different young explorers and mostly new leaders, but the expeditions will follow a similar programme and run similar experiments.