Early Childhood
Maggie Aderin-Pocock’s early childhood and education all worked together to point her towards her future career and accomplishments.
As mentioned previously, Aderin-Pocock was born in England, in 1968, to two Nigerian parents. Though they divorced when she was still quite young, she lived with her father growing up (Maggie Aderin-Pocock- Space Scientist, 2014). In an interview conducted with Maggie Aderin-Pocock through The Observer, her family did not have much money, and she remembers living in a small flat, cramped flat. Furthermore, it was revealed that school was difficult for her for several reasons. First, she moved around a lot. She ended up attending 13 different schools by the time she was 18 years old. Additionally, when she was 8 years old she was diagnosed with dyslexia (a learning disability). Because of this, she struggled in school and was placed in a remedial class. However, she then became very interested in science! It all started when she finally saved up enough money to purchase a telescope. Even though the telescope was not in perfect working condition, she soon attended a telescope making class in north London. Even though Aderin-Pocock felt a little out of place around ‘middle-aged blokes’, she pressed onward and fell in love with science! From that class she began learning about motors, some electronics, as well as some software concerning telescopes (Davis, 2014).
Education
In another article, about Maggie Aderin-Pocock, it was revealed that once she started feeding her interest in science it helped improve her other school subjects as well (reading, math, etc.) So, when Aderin-Pocock decided to pursues a degree in science, even her father tried to steer her in a different direction, mainly nursing. He claimed that nursing was ‘scientific’ too. However, she ended up graduating from the Imperial College of London in 1990 with a bachelors degree in physics. She started out enjoying physics, because it allowed her to study everything. However, her last term she took a class about telescopes, and from there on she was hooked! So, she went on to receive her doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1994 (Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, 2014).
The article, Diversity – Black women didn’t go into sciences, offers additional information about Aderin-Pocock’s educational career. When she was in college, Aderin-Pocock noticed the stereotype threat that was coming against her. She revealed in one interview that she was well aware that historically women (especially black women) did not pursue the sciences. This was put in a real context for Aderin-Pocock when she was attending the Imperial College in London. She remembers being viewed as simply meeting a diversity quota, so to speak… being black and being a woman (Vaughan, 2014)
Career
After graduating, Aderin-Pocock was employed by the British Ministry of Defense from 1996-97. For them, she worked on a missile warning system…. From that job, she was promoted to a job focusing on landmine detection, where she worked until 1999 (Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, 2014).
Again in the Diversity article, it explains Maggie Aderin-Pocock’s job as host on the BBC show called Sky at Night. This is a program directly aimed at children, and Aderin-Pocock sees it as an excellent opportunity to break down stereotypes and build knowledge. The program believes that stargazing can be just the medium to get young students interested in science. Furthermore, Aderin-Pocock uses science to encourage diversity as well. She points out in her program that every culture in the world has studied the stars, so everyone has astronomy in their heritage. In fact, 6,000 years ago African astronomers were leading the pack (Vaughan, 2014).
Sky at Night © 2014 Chris Lintott & Maggie Aderin-Pocock
The show, The Sky at Night airs programs around various topics, some of which includes “Planet 9 from Outer Space: Investigating the claims for a ninth planet existing in our solar system”, “The Real Star of Bethlehem: A Christmas Special – The team goes in search of the potential causes of the Star of Bethlehem”, or “Second Earth? – Are we really any closer to finding another world like our own against the exoplanets?” (BBC, 2016).
In a newspaper article, Lets inspire the next generation of scientists, Aderin-Pocock herself writes about some of her experiences. She believes one of her greatest achievements was in 1999 when she came back to the Imperial College of London (her Alma mater) where she worked with the Science and Technology Facilities Council Fellowship to help develop a high resolution spectrograph that would be used at the Gemini observatory in Chile, from 1999-2004. Then, Aderin-Pocock worked for the Astrium group where she worked on instruments for the Aeolus satellite, which studies weather patterns and climate change (Aderin-Pocock, 2009).
