Working on that telescope got me into optics, which got me into instrumentation and gave me my career. One of my fond memories of looking through the archive, is Patrick saying things like, ‘When we meet the Martians’, because at the time we thought there would be Martians. Yet, each time you go in for your fifteen minutes of factory medicine, the conversation always ends with a medication, procedure, or referral.

It’s about more than just diagnoses and treatments—it's about equipping each person with knowledge and tools, so they can reclaim their health and life. People take the sky for granted, they don’t look up enough,” she says, “and the thing is, astronomy is a science, but it’s a science that anyone can do: anyone can look up and think, what’s that? So there were all of these shifts taking place, and it was not known to everyone else that I had made my own decision.Yet at the same time as she was heading up prestigious projects such as the Gemini telescope, she was facing a constant battle to fill scientific posts: “I wasn’t getting enough applications for jobs I was advertising. I am thankful I was able to partake in this journey and will continue to enjoy staying connected with the other Alumni as we continue to support each other. As part of National Geographic's Women of Impact special, space scientist, author and The Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock gives insight into her journey from London to the stars.

Each would do their own thing during the day, but at night they would get together and look up at the stars. Since February 2014, she has co-presented the long-running astronomy television programme The Sky at Night with Chris Lintott. The finals of this competition are held at The Big Bang Fair in March each year, and reward young people who have achieved excellence in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics project. You can name on probably two hands the number of shows where that’s been possible in the last 20 years.

Young Maggie’s interest in the stars was sparked in childhood by TV shows such as The Clangers and Doctor Who. At week five with blood / saliva testing, the culprit was identified and corrected with supplementation for the near term. This excellent book presents Dr Maggie’s answers to some brilliant questions asked by children, from “Did a person drive a car on the moon? It was my wife who noticed yesterday that there was only a few hairs on the stairs and asked me if I’d just vacuumed. Also, many of these jobs have a shortage of practitioners so encouraging a wider, more diverse gene pool could fulfil the shortfall.

Talk of alien life leads inevitably to UFOs and conspiracy theories – so does she think governments are keeping things from us? I now have the knowledge to continue my journey to stay healthy along with the knowledge to help my friends and family. It was sometimes assumed that I was administrative staff rather than a PhD student or a cleaner rather then a project manager, and this put me under pressure to demonstrate my abilities. I thought, I have to go out and sell Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] to people, especially to the kids, and show them it makes a difference to our lives.She also worked out that if just a quarter of the landmines from the affected areas were removed that this would enable the land to produce enough food to feed 1.

I think the only thing that could have made it more perfect was if the scene could have also included Meredith [Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo] and Amelia.I’ve pioneered a successful system that uses: an online format, community, and at home testing to powerfully turn around health within a very short period of time.