Spark the Future: A hair-raising experience led Mars Snacking’s VP of Global R&D, Sustainability and Commercial to a career in science
By Amanda Davies, Mars Snacking VP of Global R&D, Sustainability and Commercial
My fascination for science was literally sparked by a spark! When I was 11, we worked on a Van de Graaff generator experiment in physics class. You’ve probably seen this before. It’s a metal sphere that, when touched, makes your hair stand on end. While I understand now how the Van de Graaff generator works (it pulls electrons from the Earth that repel each other and spread out onto the person touching the sphere), when I first encountered the generator, it seemed unbelievable. Thus began my interest in science.
Three years later when I was 14, I attended a career fair and visited a booth about engineering. As I approached the male engineers, they promptly told me I had come to the wrong stand and directed me to the other corner of the fair where the nurses were – a career, they said, that was more interesting for a girl! I then asked which engineering discipline was the hardest, and they told me chemical engineering. Nine years later, I graduated with a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Cambridge, and I haven’t looked back since.
Today, I am lucky to call Mars my professional home and use my background and experience in science to help make delicious products while minimizing our greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. I am particularly proud of the way our global and regional cross functional teams came together to build a path to scale for sustainable packaging that introduces recyclable paper and compostable paper and film. Our work in this area has earned external recognition and is a measurable part of Mars’ work toward achieving net zero GHG emissions across the full value chain by 2050.
It’s clear to me all these years later that we still need more women in science - young women with a passion, curiosity and desire to follow their dreams. I know it can be intimidating to be one of only a few females in a room – l was regularly one of five women in a very large lecture hall – but that room needs you. Follow your passion, regardless of who tells you it’s not for you!
