ABOUT ME
My name is Dr Elizabeth Mills – and I am a marine biologist and science communicator!
I have bucket loads of enthusiam, never shy away from a challenge and love to find ways to help people connect to our oceans.
You will usually find me in wellies, with my face pressed up against the barnacles and waving at crabs!
I also love Star Wars, collecting novelty caps, always wear a rucksack, love a good cup of tea…just so you know.
My journey so far has taken me from holding crabs as a kid, to becoming an engineer, performing on stage to hundreds of kids, appearing on CBeebies and researching sunken ship wrecks! This page fills you in on what I have been up to so far!
I can’t remember a time I didn’t want to be a marine biologist!
I think these two pictures sum it up really – wellies on and crab in hand!
My heart is always happiest near the sea, and I was lucky to grow up on the Isle of Sheppey so I was surrounded by coastlines and many many crabs.
My love of the sea has only grown since then – I still wonder at how incredible it is to be living out my childhood dream!
I couldn’t wait to go to university and learn all about the wonders of the ocean – and there were so many more interesting wonders than I could have imagined. I loved going to Swansea University were I got my first class degree in Marine Biology!, It involved spending hours identifying worms, long hours in the library trying to work out ocean currents, snorkelling in Puerto Rico, reading papers, exploring the rainy Welsh coasts, mapping tides and learning that there were thousands of marine creatures I had never heard of and of course …. ROCKPOOLING!
But my most important discoverey came when I got to design my own research project where I studied what grew on shipwrecks, back where I grew up on the the Isle of Sheppey! It was here I realised the importance of biofouling.
Biofouling is when the marine life you typically find in rockpools, decide to live on man-made materials instead. Biofouling is very important for both marine biology and engineering, but I noticed few researchers ever learnt both discplines. So as I never shy away from a challenge I decided to be the person who learnt both! I made the jump into engineering and graduated with a Masters by Research in Materials Engineering and then a PhD in Civil Engineering – researching how to reduce invasive biofouling species on concrete we use in harbours.
Being an interdiscplianry researcher, means I get to wear lots of different hats (and I don’t just mean that because I collect novelty caps!). I love getting to learn new skills, collaborate with other researchers and share my journey as an interdisciplinary women researcher STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths). I am particulary fond of public speaking and sharing my research at public talks and conferences, for which I have won several best poster and best talk prizes at international conferences.
My Science Communication:
MarineMumbles.com is over 5 years old! I started this site during my undergraduate… I was learning too many incredible things about the ocean to not want to share it. MarineMumbles started off as a blog and a place to share my scientific illustrations. This was my first introduction to scientific communication – since then I have been hooked on sharing what I learn.
My YouTube channel was started during my PhD – I wanted a way to take people with my into the ocean and share what I was learning. I also wanted to push my skills learn how to talk to camera. Now with over 125K views on my channel and 250+ videos and I am still loving every second. SUBSCRIBE HERE.
Now science communication, and helping others to communicate across boundaries is part of my daily job! At the University of St Andrews I work for large research consortiums MASTS, SMMR at the in Scotland. In this role not only do I get to meet so many incredible sciences, but help them collaborate, increase there research impact and help provide training. A fab role to let my chattiness, confidence and ideas flourish!
I also work for People Ocean Planet, an initiative which mixed marine social science, arts and research to help connect to the public and evaluate how we can make positive behavioural change for our seas. I a so grateful this role allowed me to combine my loves of marine life, art, research and more… from helping with art workshops with the public, gallery openings, ocean themed chatbots and orchestra performances – there was never a dull day!
Alongside this, I have been a freelance science communicator – from videos, talks, science shows to film/tv – I can’t help but share how incredible our natural world is! In fact its my greatest joy!
Now I am ready to take all I have learned throughout my varied career from picking crabs up on the beach, to engineering to talking to policymakers, artists and scientists across the UK to work as a full-time freelancer. I feel I have a lot of scientific and creative skills to bring to any project – and bucket loads of enthusiasm! There’s lots of ways we can collaborate and work together! Please get in touch!
