Gillian Pearce at her Graduation

Gillian Pearce, Sussex’s first female engineering graduate, talks about her Sussex journey and the motivation behind supporting the Gillian Pearce Prize in Engineering and Informatics.

I was drawn to Materials Science thanks to a holiday job at Philips. Both my parents worked there, my father as an engineer and my mother as a bookkeeper. I was placed with an industrial chemist who was working on ferrite cores, which were used for computer memories before the advent of semi-conductors. It inspired my interest in materials and what they could do for us.

All of the universities that I applied to were modern, but I was especially drawn to Sussex because of its interdisciplinarity. My course provided a background in different subjects, in particular other aspects of engineering, some electrical, some mechanical and so on. That’s why Sussex was so good; with that mixture of studies it gave me an insight into different subjects and technologies.

I thought that it was quite enlightened for Sussex to give me a place. My A levels weren’t that good. I attended a convent school and we didn’t have an advanced physics or a chemistry teacher of our own – we had to borrow one from the local boys’ school who could only teach us for a few hours every week. Sussex took this into account and offered me a place regardless.

At the time, I didn’t think it was particularly outstanding to be Sussex’s first female engineering graduate, although in hindsight I can see just how pioneering that was. Having a Sussex degree served me well – it made it easier to get a good job.

It was my Materials Science tutor at Sussex who suggested that I should investigate Information Science. My first job was at The Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, then I moved to IBM Hursley Laboratories and, for the final phase of my career, I worked at the Drug Safety Research Unit at Southampton University, which carried out epidemiological research into new drugs in the aftermath of the Thalidomide scandal. I was the Database Manager and was responsible for computing there.

I was surprised and thrilled when Sussex suggested putting my name to a prize. What is more, my friends are all very impressed! I never dreamed of instigating something like this, but having had the concept presented to me, I decided to support it in the future by making a yearly gift for as long as I am able. It is really gratifying being able to help Sussex students.