Profile
Lucy Kissick
My CV
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Education:
Farnborough Road Primary School (1996-2004), Formby High School (2004-2009), King George V College (2009-2011), Durham University (2011-2015), University of Oxford (2016-)
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Qualifications:
GCSEs, A Levels, Bachelors and Masters degree in Physical Geography
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Work History:
European Space Agency (Autumn 2015), UK Space Agency (Summer 2015), various part-time jobs like bartender, waitress, barista, cashier, papergirl, it goes on
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Current Job:
PhD student
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About Me:
Hugger of rocks and cats, and would hug rocks and cats on Mars if they’d let me.
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I’m native to the seaside town of Southport in the North West but presently based in Oxford, where I’ve just started my PhD. A PhD means after four years of staring at Mars, wearing lab coats, and falling asleep on keyboards I’ll transform from a Miss to a Doctor and feel special on the inside.
I love hiking, biking, both reading and writing science fiction, and talking about why colonising the Solar System is one of the most important things humans should ever do.
I don’t yet own twenty-seven cats and one llama, but it is my life’s ambition to do so.
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I’m kept up at night by ancient climate change on Mars: why did all the exciting things like rivers and lakes die off just around the time life was getting going on Earth?? Mars today is colder than the Antarctic, drier than the Sahara, and almost as airless as the Moon, but three billion years ago it was somewhat Earthlike; a microbe might have even done quite well in parts.
To understand what caused the switch to today’s bland desert, I want to know everything I can about what the air used to be like. The air pressure is now only a hundredth of Earth’s (meaning you would boil alive if you teleported there!), but must have been thicker if water once flowed in the dry riverbeds we see. What this air was made of, where those gases came from, and why they eventually stopped doing their job, are all questions I hope to answer soon!
Here’s one of my favourite videos on the ‘Curiosity’ rover I work with that is actually on Mars right now:
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My Typical Day:
A lot of reading and jotting down ideas (for now)
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I’m still in the planning stage of my project right now, so my typical day involves a lot of reading and talking excitedly with professors about how cool Mars is. The first six months of a PhD can be like this: I need to come up with a question I want to answer over the next three years and figure out how I can realistically go about this.
In a couple of months time, however, I’ll be up to my eyes in complicated software that I don’t yet know how to use (eek), and setting up chemical experiments in the lab that re-enact what might have occurred on Mars. In particular, I’m hoping to make a mineral from some crushed lava that will give off hydrogen gas in the process. Maybe this gas, along with volcanic fumes like carbon dioxide, was responsible for thickening Mars’ atmosphere long ago.
Even cooler, by summer I might be doing fieldwork in places like Oman or Iceland, where the processes I’ve created in the lab actually occur on Earth. It’s not a trip to Mars, but it’s the next best thing.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Run workshops in deprived local schools to promote the benefits of attending university
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Pro-cat activist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Yes: for daydreaming or reading under the desk
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Taylor Swift
What's your favourite food?
Cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) To be part of the team that first discovers life beyond Earth, 2) To publish a science fiction novel, and 3) To move to Mars with my loved ones and start an independent socialist community
Tell us a joke.
A man sees a snail on his rose bushes one day, and thinking nothing of it he chucks it over the wall. Three months later there’s a knock on the door, and when he looks down the man sees a very angry snail on his step. “What did you do that for?!” the snail roars.
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