My interest in glaciers and glaciation was first awoken while I was walking and climbing in the Scottish Highlands as a teenager. I was able to follow both climbing and scientific interests while working on my PhD at the University of St Andrews, on the last (Younger Dryas) glaciers on the Isle of Skye. I continued to be based at St Andrews first as a Post Doc then as a Reader, with a six-year interlude as a Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. During this time I worked on many aspects of glacier science in wild and wonderful parts of the world, including Norway, Iceland, the Alps, North and South America, and the Himalaya. Between 2006 and 2015 I was Professor of Glaciology at the University Centre in Svalbard, and returned full-time to St Andrews in January 2016 as Chair of Environmental Change.