Spotlight on Dr Helen Scales, Sutton High School

As we count down to the GDST Alumna of the Year Award 2018, we’re shining the spotlight on each of our trailblazing finalists. Here, we find out more about Dr Helen Scales, alumna of Sutton High School. 

Dr Helen Scales is a writer, presenter and marine biologist (you may remember her from her school days as Helen Hendry). A few days after collecting her A Level results at Sutton High, she set off on her first overseas travels to explore the underwater world and hasn’t really stopped since. She’s searched for giant fish on the coral reefs of Borneo, waded through muddy mangroves in Madagascar and reported on endangered seahorses in Vietnam.

Having begun her career working with conservation organisations including WWF in Malaysia, and gaining her Masters from Newcastle and PhD from Cambridge, Helen discovered a passion for writing and broadcasting.

Helen has written six books including 11 Explorations into Life on Earth about the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, with an introduction by Sir David Attenborough. Spirals in Time, about the wonders of seashells, was a Guardian bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and it was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Biology book award. Her latest book Eye of the Shoal (out on May 3rd) takes readers on an underwater journey to explore the amazing lives of fish.

Over the last ten years Helen has become a regular on the BBC. She’s pondered the deep with Professor Brian Cox on The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4, talked about strange fish with Chris Packham on BBC 2’s World’s Weirdest Events and captained the Newcastle team on celebrity University Challenge.

Among her documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service Helen has followed the dream of living underwater and searched for the perfect wave. She’s also science advisor to the marine conservation charity Sea Changers, a regular speaker at science festivals across the country and she presents the new podcast series Earth Unscrewed.

Vote now!