How Jacqueline switched from tube train driver to top scientist

A Brighton graduate who started work life as a tube train driver has been made a Fellow of one of the world’s most prestigious science programmes.

Jacqueline Campbell graduated with an Earth and Ocean Sciences degree from the University of Brighton’s School of Environment and Technology in 2016 and later won a PhD studentship at UCL where she is studying planetary science.

She has now been appointed one of just 22 Fellows on the Schmidt Science Fellows programme which aims “to give the world’s best aspiring scientific minds a broader perspective, the ability to engage in an interdisciplinary way, and the opportunity to make a lasting impact in society”. It encourages emerging scientists to develop novel solutions to society’s challenges and to become “scientific and societal thought leaders and accelerate ground-breaking discoveries”.

Jacqueline praised the University of Brighton: “I am very grateful to the University as I started my degree there as a mature student having been a tube train driver and care worker for many years.

“It was a difficult transition into science, made much easier by all the wonderful staff at Brighton.”

Jacqueline plans to go on to study ocean acidification using satellite data, and to make scientific data easier to access and interpret: “The hope is to make a global map anyone can use to find information and data, whether that’s fellow scientists, students, journalists, policy makers or anyone with an interest.”