Voices of Science

Janet Thomson (1942-), geologist, spent her career working on the geology of Antarctica under the auspices of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), retiring from her post as Head of Mapping in 2003. Her early work on the geology of the South Orkney Islands was based on samples collected by male scientists since BAS policy at the time did not allowfemale scientists to visit the region. In 1983 she became the first female BAS scientist to work inside the Antarctic Circle. She was later involved in the development of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s Antarctic Digital Topographic Database which brings together geographic information from a range of sources into a single topographic map of the continent.