Meet Dr Emma Young: Biophysical modeller at the British Antarctic Survey

By Kath Whittey

Dr Emma Young is an ocean and biophysical modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). In our interview we spoke about ocean currents, shrinking Antarctic krill, how you can use computer modelling to predict the movement of creatures in the water and her experience as a woman in ocean science. Dr Young also explains that you can include the variability of environmental factors in the models, so they can be used to predict effects such as climate change. 

Hi Dr Young! Tell us a bit about your work.

“I work for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) where I develop and apply ocean and transport models to look at how our variable ocean affects marine biota.”

So what is a biophysical modeller exactly?

“Ah well it depends who you talk to! But my personal take on it is that I develop individual based models, which are basically particle tracking models with added biology, that simulate how a species responds to the physical environment around it… So, for example, if I wanted to look at fish eggs, larvae, or krill, we would release a load of particles at specific sites and then model where they get transported to in the currents. And the interesting bit is, that along with the attributes of the physical environment like ocean currents and temperature, you can also include biological variables like swimming, growth, and mortality. So we can release a load of particles and then program the particles to ‘behave’ like the species we're interested in, like krill.”

Ok cool, so you release a load of virtual particles in your model and then you can put in krill specific traits, like how they respond to their environment?

"Yes exactly, so for example, one of the things I've been doing recently is modelling the transport of Antarctic krill in the SW Atlantic and looking at how ocean currents affect the transport between different areas. I've also looked at how the predicted transport might change if the krill move with sea ice instead of the ocean currents, and it turns out to have a really big impact on their movement. One of the really interesting things about Antarctic krill is that they can shrink in response to starvation, so one thing we’d like to add to our models is their growth and shrinking in response to the availability of food in the area they’re transported into by the ocean currents and sea ice drift.”

Wow that’s awesome! And how do you actually simulate this movement? I presume you first have to collect real ocean currents? How is that done? I’m guessing it’s a lot more sophisticated than using messages in bottles?

"My transport models actually use simulated currents from an ocean model to predict the movement of particles but the ocean models themselves need observed data. We use the data to check that the ocean models are realistic, and some models also use data assimilation that prevents the models drifting too far from reality. There are lots of ways the data are collected such as satellites, Argo floats and surface drifters, ship observations… Satellites can measure the sea surface height, for example, and we can derive surface currents from that. Surface floats will float near the surface of the ocean sometimes for years and actually ping their locations to satellites at regular intervals, so although we only see measures at those specific time points we get those data in real time more or less.”

Ok so that’s quite an in-depth picture, is all this data shared somewhere so you can get a really big picture of what’s going on?

“Yes, so there are a few places, the British Oceanographic Data Centre, the Polar Data Centre at BAS, and international centres as well like the National Oceanographic Data Centre in the US.”

This is all pretty techy and clever stuff! How did you get to where you are now?

“I was always interested in maths and physics at school and I was encouraged  to go into physics. So I did! I did a physics degree and was offered a PhD on investigating semi-conductor quantum wells with lasers but I didn’t fancy being in a dark room playing with lasers for years. Instead I did an MSc in Atmospheric Sciences and was offered a masters project looking at modelling pollution transport in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, which I thought sounded really interesting. That led to a PhD in oceanography… and I still ended up in a dark room but on a computer for 3 years! So that PhD was modelling cockles and mussels in The Wash in the UK. I’ve never really had much of a plan I’ve just followed what interested me.  

That’s great! It’s sometimes kind of refreshing and reassuring to hear that people don’t have plans and just follow their instincts a bit! And what about after your PhD?

My first job was with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science where I did some sea-going oceanography, which was really interesting but I get terribly seasick! So I fairly quickly dropped the sea-going side and focused on the computing side. I’ve always loved interdisciplinary work. Pure physics was great but what I really love is the boundary between subjects. That’s where the really exciting stuff happens. When you join the physical environment with the biology that’s when you can make some really exciting discoveries! Biological organisms exist in the physical environment and so when you look at both that’s when you really get to understand what’s going on.”

That’s amazing! And what about Antarctica and working in the Southern Ocean? It’s such an interesting place, all this data is from such a remote place and there are actually so many research bases in Antarctica from so many different countries. What is it like, is it very communal? Is it territorial? Or does everyone work together?

“Yes it’s very collaborative, you have to be collaborative because if there's a medical emergency you’d look for the nearest support regardless of who it is. There are also a lot of collaborative projects. It’s so hard logistically to get down to Antarctica that there are projects which involve partners from all over the world. It’s more collaborative than competitive. It’s such a demanding environment that you really need to lean on each other. And if one ship has space for a researcher, for example, there will be a call out in the community and someone can hop onto that vessel. One of our BAS students hopped on a German vessel recently, for example.”

That’s awesome! I love this idea of everyone working together in this really cold and demanding environment. It give me hope for the future, thinking that when things are really tough, people will come together to help each other.

Antarctica to me seems like a place that has been out of reach for women for so long! Women weren’t even allowed on ships. Similarly I get the feeling that physics and maths is still quite heavily male-dominated, so I’m curious about your experience. How do you find being a woman in STEMM?

“Generally good! Sometimes I’ve felt self-conscious in the past being the only woman in the team and we definitely need more women moving up the chain. But it’s getting better, especially in terms of balancing family and work, people are understanding about arranging meeting times around school pick-up for example. And actually a lot of that is to do with having women in the higher level positions who are arranging the meetings! They tend to think of it.”

That’s great and how do you hope your voice and work as a marine educator will influence others?

“I have PhD students, that’s a big part of science, training up the next generation of researchers. And I do some presenting to scout groups too… I think the main thing really is just being visible. I would hope that seeing a woman working in physical sciences and numerical modelling in particular will encourage girls and women to consider doing these sorts of subjects, and then also to carry on in these areas of research. I also think for early career researchers I hope that being visible as a female researcher with a family I can be an example of being able to have a career in this area with a family too. You know even if it’s not always very easy! 

That’s so important! There are so many of us ‘milling around at the beginning of the career ladder here and it’s so important to be able to see women making it work. Thank you for saying that and being honest about it.

“It is a challenge for sure. My career did take a hit when I started a family and I took a full year off for maternity. I was a bit unfortunate that I had a couple of nasty pregnancies and so I did have to take more time off than would normally be expected. I then returned to work part-time and that’s great, but there is a pressure to work a full-time job in part-time hours. That pressure is partly on me and how I want to work, it’s my own perspective of the work. But I’m not alone in that. Other part-timers say the same thing: that you tend to feel like you’re not getting enough done. Childcare can also be tricky, especially for conferences. My husband is a physical oceanographer so we tend to want to go to the same conferences and we have to draw straws for who gets to go! Grant or research proposals are also a nightmare! We can’t suddenly work a weekend or work late into the night when we’ve got dinner to make or swimming lessons to get to! So I’m really hoping that also improves as we get more women moving up the chain. Because having a family really does make you less flexible and that’s often overlooked. With time I became less concerned with being the only woman in the group and at BAS the number of women in our science team is increasing. And the men I work with have always been really supportive.”

With all your experience what’s your advice? What would you like to say to the next generation?

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t be afraid of having a voice. Science changes all the time, we’re always pushing the boundaries of knowledge and we’re learning. So it's OK to change our minds about things. Also, confidence comes with experience, so try not to feel out of place while you’re gaining that experience.”

I feel like you’re an inspiration and I’m keen to know who influenced you? Did you have many female role models in your field when you started?

“There were so few women ocean modellers when I started out! I would very often be sat in a room full of white men. It was very, very lacking in diversity. Karen Heyward is a physical oceanographer at UEA where I did my PhD, and I certainly looked to her as an inspiration of what you could achieve in your field. ”

That’s so interesting. I’ve been so lucky to have many, many female mentors. I’m so grateful to them.

Where do you go from here?

'“Well as computer power increases it would be great to run global models at a much finer resolution, or downscaling to regional models but again with much finer resolution. There’s a canyon for example on the northwest South Orkney Plateau, about 10km wide, which is a hotspot for krill but we don't have a model that can resolve it. If we could resolve that canyon we could ask why that environment is so exciting to krill, and what makes all the krill gather there. With more computer power we'd also be able to run climate change models at higher resolution, which could really enhance our ability to assess the impacts of future climate change.”

Modelling all these smaller species has huge implications for the more familiar and popular marine species like penguins, whales and seals and together scientists can work with fishers to practice sustainable fishing. At the end of our chat I volunteered myself to sample collect if ever needed! And Dr Young reminded me of some of the great citizen scientist projects which BAS are running including “Walrus from Space”, and "Albatrosses from Space".