Anna Lacey, 2002

Anna Lacey read Natural Sciences at Clare and is currently Content Editor for BBC Audio Science, looking after science and health programmes and podcasts for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service.

Who was your greatest Clare influence and why?

The late Mike Majerus – lover of ladybirds, smoking and slippers! He changed the course of my life by telling me that if I really wanted to work in science media, I should commit to the decision, ditch the idea of a PhD and make it happen. I never looked back. 

Anna's Story

If I had to pick a single memory to represent my time at Clare, it’s walking to lectures over Clare bridge on a bright, winter morning and seeing the mist over King’s lawn. Seeing it for the first time gave me an almost other-worldly experience – like I was in some sort of movie! That vision is so vivid for me even now and any time I return and walk the route from Memorial Court to Old Court, I’m reminded of how lucky I felt that day to be there.

To be honest, I was fortunate to choose Clare in the first place. I was on a Sutton Trust summer school at Emma during year 13 and was a bit overwhelmed by the idea of picking a college. One of the helpers came over, said he was from Clare and that it was ‘the friendly college’. And that was all I needed to know!

It turns out he wasn’t wrong and I went on to make lifelong friends. One of them had a radio show on CUR1350, which at the time broadcast from the basement of Churchill college. He invited me along to appear on his May Week show and I was totally hooked. We went on to make a new show, Audiotherapy, with crazy jingles, ridiculous chat and a phone-in competition called ‘Guess the Fruit’. It was high-level stuff and we definitely had listeners in the double figures… I’d never in my life thought about radio as a career, so I have a lot to thank student radio for in terms of showing me that you don’t have to be an academic if you study science.

Having now worked in science journalism for the best part of two decades (and absolutely loved it), I still feel the echoes of my time at Clare. I think of all the fabulous communicators of scientific concepts in my lectures; supervisions with people like Nicky Clayton and Patricia Fara who show true passion in telling the stories of science; and people like William Foster who taught me to take time to look at the world and consider the small things that others miss. It’s easy to take people for granted when you’re a student and don’t know any different. But looking back I can appreciate the things I learned beyond the details needed for that week’s essay.

The opportunities and chance encounters I had at Clare really did show me that there are all sorts of paths you can go down in your life – and that the fun is in finding the ones you really care about.