What has been the most important moment in your career?
I got to witness the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. That was a real inflection point that made me shift from documenting the impacts of climate change to really focusing on climate solutions: what do we as a society need to do, and how can I as a scientist help light that pathway, and make an impact?
What are you particularly proud of in your research career?
I'm proud of my book Under the Sky We Make. It wasn’t just my first book, but the first text I've written as a solo author. I usually work collaboratively with co-authors and students, so to be responsible for a big project like this all by myself was both challenging and rewarding.
I wanted to write about research in a way that would make someone choose to read my book instead of watching Netflix.
What do you appreciate the most/least about working in academia?
I really appreciate the freedom and flexibility in academia, to be able to set my own agenda of what I work on, who I work with and how I structure my time. Being appointed professor gives me more freedom and flexibility to pursue the things that I think are meaningful and fun, which I'm grateful for.
What can be frustrating is how slow things move in academia. We face a lot of urgent crises that require both wise and fast action, and that is a dilemma.
It can take three or five years from when you have an idea to when you publish the first paper. And oops! There goes half of our remaining carbon budget in that time.
There have been times when I wondered if I should do something else that might have more impact. But at the moment I feel very happy to be in academia and I think that there is a real need to think critically and carefully, and even slowly about things in order to get the right answers and to solve problems in a way that will actually work.
I think academia has a valuable role to play in stabilizing the climate, but we also need to collaborate with people outside academia and complement each other.
What’s your advice to students or young professionals who want to make a career in academia?
It's a really competitive field, and there's also a lot of job uncertainty for a long time. In order to make it work, I think you have to really enjoy the process of doing research: asking and answering questions, collecting and analyzing data, discussing ideas, reading and writing. So, you better like those things because you're going to spend four years of your life doing them to get a PhD.
I would also say that it's not good to pursue a PhD solely as a means to an end, such as becoming a professor. That's how I approached it, and I spent a lot of my time in grad school stressing over my future career. Instead, it's important to focus on and find meaning and joy in the research process itself, not just the outcome. This is especially crucial for those working in climate research because the outcomes are uncertain, and depend so much on what people do now.
What gives you inspiration and energy to do research?
I like engaging my curiosity and learning new things, and discussing ideas with students or collaborators. I learn the most when engaging with people from different academic backgrounds, or with people outside ofacademia.
Spending time in nature also gives me good positive energy and it is a motivation for the work I do – trying to ensure that there is nature left to hand over to the next generation.
What are you working on right now?
I'm writing a new book on what needs to happen in the world to meet radical sustainability goals. I think the world is asking the wrong questions right now. In the book, I’m exploring what questions we should be asking instead, and what the answers to these questions could be. It feels a little bit naive to be writing a book on how to fix not only the climate but other sustainability issues as well, as it is a very dark time politically right now, but I think that's the most valuable contribution I can make as an academic.