From student to senior researcher: five women who are making their mark at Imperial

Helen O’Brien is a Senior Instrument Manager at the Space Magnetometer Lab. Helen’s role involves leading a team of engineers and scientists who build and operate magnetometers (magnetic field instruments) for space science satellites, including for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). “Our Solar Orbiter magnetometer, launched in 2020, has sent back billions of magnetic field vectors to Earth, and measured the magnetic field of the Sun and Venus. The Sun’s magnetic field dominates our solar system. Understanding how it works, and how it influences the near Earth environment is fundamental to understanding space weather and its impact on our planet.”

It was Imperial’s involvement in other notable space instrument projects that inspired Helen to apply to work there. “Imperial has a well-deserved reputation for excellence in space instrumentation; Imperial provided hardware for the first UK space science satellite (named Ariel 1 and launched in 1962) and Imperial magnetometers have been sending back data from all corners of the solar system continuously since the joint ESA-NASA Ulysses mission was launched in 1990.”

Looking ahead, Helen’s work is taking her on new missions. “The launch of JUICE [JUpiter ICy moons Explorer] in April this year will take an Imperial magnetometer to Jupiter! Later this year, we will deliver our magnetometer for the NASA IMAP [Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe] mission, ready for launch in 2025.”

“I love seeing instruments I am involved with launching and generating world class science data. I also enjoy working with multi-disciplinary teams, including experts in electronics, software, mechanical and thermal aspects of instrument design, and mentoring younger engineers as they develop their skills and careers.”

On advice for younger women, Helen emphasises the importance of self-belief. “We all need to nurture our own bubble of self-belief. Base your self-belief on the results you get from hard work, listening to supportive and inspiring voices. Filter out the overly critical ones – life is too short to dwell on those who you put you down.”

Vanessa Madu is an undergraduate mathematics student. As a mathematician, Vanessa uses maths as a lens to understand a much bigger picture. “That is not every mathematician. A lot of mathematicians do not seek to understand what the universe is doing, they may wish to do math for maths sake. But I am an applied mathematician, which means that I take the mathematical techniques that we develop and apply them to real life problems.”

“Maths at a degree level is very different to school, and it is using a developed toolkit to understand the way the universe works.” 

Vanessa has been passionate about maths since she was young, which made her stand out from her peers. “People in my school were not particularly science-y. My love for maths was a very unusual thing at the time. So I did not have many other people [around me] who go it.”

Vanessa’s first introduction to Imperial began with her physics teacher, who is an Imperial alumnus. “He was the one that really challenged me. I did not go to a particularly high achieving school, but he used to give me extra questions or things to investigate. He came across a summer school one day and forward it to me, telling me to apply and so I did. I really enjoyed it!”

Applying for her undergraduate degree at Imperial followed, with the encouragement of her teachers. It was at Imperial where Vanessa found likeminded people, with a similar love for STEM as her. “My teachers told me that if you go to Imperial, you will find your people. And that is what happened! I came here and there are loads of people who love maths. But the main thing that I knew I was going to love at Imperial was the fact that it is just STEM.” 

When thinking of a role model, Vanessa draws a blank. For her, there is a gap in role models for young, diverse scientists. “Role models are a bit tricky, because there are not as many women in sufficiently high places that we can look to as role models. Particularly [for] women of colour. But I hope I get to be that person to somebody else.” 

Following the completion of her undergraduate degree, Vanessa will be continuing her studies on the Modern Statistics and Statistical Machine Learning (StatML). The programme is based at Imperial College London and the University of Oxford. “I will be developing statistical and machine learning methods that are used in maths and sciences more generally. I am doing it with a specific focus. I love oceans, I think they are very cool! However, it is too difficult to sample it all because it is massive. For us to make some progress on studying the ocean, we have got to find other ways to integrate things that we know about how the ocean will behave - from physics - and what we can see the ocean doing.”

Vanessa’s passions also include science communications. She is currently this year's Royal College of Science Union (RSCU) Science Challenge Chair. “I love telling people about science! Scientific literacy is something that I wish more people had, because it is not some faraway knowledge that only few can possess. But because of the way science is presented, people think they just cannot understand it.” 

“I want a huge part of what I do to show other people that they can get it. The lightbulb moment that people have when they understand something is just wonderful. In an ideal world, I would be a science TV presenter. Or doing lots of science communications writing. I would continue my advance research but explaining that same science to kids too.”

Vanessa encourages all young women to feel empowered to ask that burning question in their lecture or answer the question asked by the lecturer, even if they are not confident. “My university experience has significantly improved because I will ask a question even if I am not sure or answer a question I am not sure about or apply for things that I do not feel fully qualified for. Because there are other people that will do it. I do not like the idea of just saying be more confident because it is not a useful thing to say. But just bear in mind that there are people who will do things with a lot less certainty than you.”

Vanessa was also profiled as part of the 2022 Black History Month story which can be read on Imperial Stories.