Space Scientist, Mountaineer, Explorer
Hi, my name's Suzie, I'm a Professor of Space Physics, a high altitude mountaineer, an explorer, and maybe one day an astronaut! My area of expertise is Space Weather, studying the interaction of the solar wind on the planets in our solar system, and I'm currently involved in the BepiColombo mission to Mercury, which launched on 20th October 2018, and will go into orbit around Mercury in December 2025. I have also written computer code for to run on a supercomputer to automatically identify mountains in the Andes and the Himalayas, and as a result of discovering many unclimbed mountains using my code, I set off with my climbing partner Max every year to make first ascents of high mountains in some of the most remote regions of the planet. Finally, I won the 2017 BBC2 series 'Astronauts: Do You Have What it Takes?', a BBC science series where 12 candidates were selected from thousands of applicants, and put through their paces by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. After dozens of gruelling tests and a selection process lasting several months, I was selected the winner, and have some amazing stories to tell about my astronaut adventures! I launched a huge public engagement programme, and have shared stories of the solar system and our place in it, with audiences around the world.