 That's a big question right? Environmental science is so diverse that you can do so many different things and I was so passionate about everything that I didn't have a clear idea of my ideal job. Do you think yourself at age 20 would be surprised by where you've ended up? I think so yeah I think so because initially before I studied environmental science is I even wanted to be a dentist so I think my younger me that wanted to be a dentist would be quite sick of what I ended up doing. Something that surprised me about environmental science is the amount of collaboration that you do. Sometimes other disciplines can bring a completely different perspective that you didn't even consider as an option. My name's Riley I am undergraduate student studying the Bachelor of Environment and Sustainability and I'm about to start my honours into bushfire research. My name is Marta Llebra and I'm a associate professor at the Fenerese School of Environment and Society and the School of Engineering. I'm here today to interview my future self and find out what it's like in the career that I'm interested in going into. At a dinner party how do you explain what you do? Well I use remote sensing technologies so these are sensors that measure things from the distance about the environment to provide tools for emergency responders. So I provide information about fire risks where fires are located and what are the impacts of the fires in the environment. What did you think your job was going to be like compared to what it actually is? It depends on how long back I go. Yes so when I first started to study environmental sciences I wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I didn't have any idea on what my job would look like because environmental science is so diverse that you can do so many different things and I was so passionate about everything that I didn't have a clear idea of my ideal job. When I decided to do a PhD and become an academic my idealization of the job was similar to what I'm doing now but I didn't know it was probably as demanding so an academic job is very very demanding and perhaps I was not aware of how demanding it can be. You had like a wide range of interests within environmental science how did you kind of narrow down to which one you wanted to pursue further? By trial and error I will say so when I was studying environmental science I volunteered or took a little research assistant jobs in many different areas for example I was once volunteering in a hospital managing the residuals of the hospital and I was once in a microbiology lab analyzing the honey of different bees so yeah trial and error trying different things and then finding out what I'm more passionate about. Do you think yourself at age 20 would be surprised by where you've ended up? My younger me that wanted to be a dentist would be quite sick of what I ended up doing because my younger me that I was studying already environmental science wouldn't be that surprised but I think yeah quite proud. Yeah so I guess like what's been the role of collaboration in your career and how have you found especially interdisciplinary collaboration playing a part in your research? Yeah I think it's super important because our environmental problems are so broad and so complex that you really need to work with multidisciplinary teams and I found it very very good as well because again you learn a lot and sometimes other disciplines can bring a completely different perspective that you didn't even consider as an option. Some areas of environmental science and natural resource management can be very male dominated so how have you found the experience as a woman in those spaces? Yeah look it is true it's very male dominated especially in the bush farm management area. Overall I think I have had a good experience of course it's always a bit uncomfortable when you go to a room and there is no any female other than you it's something I have learned to live with and it's something that is improving so it's little by little you see that that situation is improving and there are more women doing bush farm management but it's true that sometimes white men's are heard more than a female researcher. Testing my knowledge, testing my knowledge. What is the most interesting experience you have had in your career? The most interesting experience I have had in my career I think has been the development of this satellite mission. I never in my career thought that I was going to be designing a satellite. I think I have talked a lot now so I'm curious to know what have you learned over the last few minutes we've been talking and what have you what's your main takeaway? Yeah well I found it really interesting to talk to you and I think you know it's great to see that you can have kind of all the elements of a career that really interests you I think you know it's really I've always really wanted to do a lot of field work and then I also really interested in you know overseas like collaborations and also you know practical implementation and it's been really interesting to hear how you've kind of incorporated a lot of different elements into your own research and your own career and yeah just really how how the research you do does have a practical you know beneficial impact and that you can be directly involved in creating and developing that impact throughout your career. Yeah thank you so much for letting me interview you. I've really enjoyed hearing about your career and I hope that you know I'll be able to take what you've said on board. Thank you I'm sure your future self will be even better.