I am a Schmidt Science Fellow and interdisciplinary scientist with an unconventional career path. I was a tube train driver and social care worker for many years before I took evening classes and correspondence courses in astrophysics and enrolled at the University of Brighton, earning a First-Class Honours Earth and Ocean Science BSc. I did my PhD in Space & Climate Physics at UCL, looking for life on Mars. I was then selected for the prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship, investigating ocean acidification by harnessing remote sensing satellites at the University of Oxford. I then worked in startups in the drug discovery and science entrepreneurship sectors. Now I have co-founded the UK’s first worker-owned co-operative research laboratory, Asterisk Labs, where we are working at the intersection of deep learning, Earth observation and climate science, with all our scientific outputs being open-source. I believe increasing public understanding and trust in scientists is vital to improving human wellbeing, and that interdisciplinary, collaborative, accessible open science is crucial for creating a better future.