Charlotte Williams: ‘Being an academic is a wonderful job’

As a very young child I was really interested in naming wildflowers, collecting and observing them in the countryside where I grew up. That was the beginning of being really interested and looking carefully at the natural world that often motivates scientists.

I also really wanted to be a librarian, because they had a stamp that looked fun to use that they put on the books when you took them home. That combination of enjoying reading books and learning things, but also observing and cataloging and spotting – I think that those are quite common characteristics of scientists.