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Barney Women and Girls in STEM

Rebecca Gibson: Head of Biology and Combined Science

Where has my Degree in Zoology and Master’s in Wild Animal Biology taken me? It’s been a journey filled with challenges and wonder. I’ve questioned my love for studying biodiversity while dodging vultures attacking me as a zookeeper or being the ‘Chosen One’ in Mexico’s ‘Hormiguero’ camp, with a tent overrun nightly by invasive ants. But these moments pale in comparison to the awe I have felt waking to the hauntingly beautiful calls of Indri in Madagascar, teaching a lion to sit for health checks, standing as 3 million bats flew past me from their cave, discovering a new lizard species in Honduras, and even assisting in an elephant post-mortem.

Some of my most rewarding experiences come from seeing students light up with curiosity about Biology —from extracting DNA from kiwi fruit to fieldwork on UK ecology and conservation projects abroad. I’ve been incredibly lucky doing some very weird and wonderful things that I never dreamt I would do, seizing opportunities that led me from veterinary nursing and zookeeping to global conservation work and teaching the next generation of biologists to love the subject as much as I do.

I am proud to be a Zoologist. The world around us is full of endless mysteries—we will never know it all. There will always be more questions to ask, new knowledge to gain, and countless opportunities to connect with the natural world.