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Staff Spotlight: Dr Frances Hopkins - Marine biogeochemist

13 May 2024

Meet Dr Frances Hopkins – or more affectionately known at the laboratory here as Frankie – a Marine Biogeochemist in our “Marine Biogeochemistry and Observations‘ group. Frankie has now been with us for 15 years since she finished her PhD back in 2009, and she kindly sat down with us to tell us about her career journey – and the remarkable places she’s travelled as part of it – plus her work investigating the mysterious climate-cooling gas: DMS.

Above: Dr Frances Hopkins in the Falklands pictured alongside a large group of Gentoo penguins. Like other penguin species, gentoo penguins rely on the ocean for food and are never far from the water.

Above: Dr Frances Hopkins in the Falklands pictured alongside a large group of Gentoo penguins. Like other penguin species, gentoo penguins rely on the ocean for food and are never far from the water.

We first congratulated Frankie on her recent “work-iversary’, and then asked her what attracted her to PML, and what has kept her with us all this time.

“I was fortunate that PML co-hosted my PhD, so I spent a few months here working with my PML supervisor and the air-sea exchange team in 2007 – I was very impressed by the loveliness of South Devon, and just felt really at home both at PML and in this part of the country. So, when the perfect position opened at PML just as I was finishing my PhD, I didn’t hesitate to apply!”

“Fast forward 15 years, I’ve been involved in so many incredible projects over the years, travelled to beautiful and remote parts of the world, and enjoyed working with a brilliant team and developing my career at PML. And the southwest is just such a great place to live and raise a family. I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else right now.”

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Above: Frankie undertaking fieldwork in Svalbard as part of the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA)

Like Frankie, many of our PhD students go on to grow established careers at the laboratory, or develop close working relationships with the teams here that can last a lifetime of collaboration – building progressive scientific alliances between other organisations.

Frankie’s PhD focused on investigating marine trace gases, including DMS (Dimethyl sulfide) – a naturally-occurring climate-cooling gas, and this has remained a focus for her during her career at PML. We next asked Frankie if she could tell us what inspired her to follow this area of research, and what has kept her following it all these years.

“I first learnt about DMS as an undergraduate at Bangor University – the fact that this microbial gas, which gives the sea its distinctive smell, could influence global-scale climate processes astonished me. This led me to apply for a PhD at the University of East Anglia (UEA) with Prof Peter Liss, which really was the place to be for DMS-related research at that time, so I was in very good company.”

“Even to this day, this area of research instils a sense of awe in me, and that has kept me going. I also feel I am contributing something useful to the bigger picture understanding of the Earth’s climate, and in the face of climate breakdown this helps me feel some sense of empowerment.”

Watch now: Dr Frances Hopkins explains what causes that distinctive smell of the sea: DMS (Dimethyl sulfide)

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