Maisa Rojas from the University of Chile tells Mike about her work on regional climate modeling, paleoclimate, and the Southern Hemisphere westerlies. The story begins with Maisa’s birth in Chile, but quickly moves on to the family’s dramatic escape from Pinochet’s rebellion and immigration to Germany. Maisa returned to Chile at age 12, and then spent much of her young life traveling and working in the UK, US, and France.

Maisa has played an integral role in recent IPCC activities, and she updates Mike on the many changes in store for AR6, for which she’ll serve at a coordinating lead author for chapter I in Working Group I.

Maisa’s story is emblematic of both the personal challenges spawned by political upheavals, the difficulties in securing a permanent position in science, and the ongoing and often hard-to-detect discrimination experienced by women in science. Maisa is now working to build gender equity in climate science and a stronger sense of community, both within Chile and among those working on Southern Hemisphere climate research. It’s a major effort, but as Maisa says, “for complexity you need diversity”.