▶ Available 22 March 2025
Divya Kumar is a community engagement manager for Earthwatch Europe, planting and overseeing Tiny Forests around the UK – aiming for 300 by the end of 2025. She describes herself now as a socio-environmentalist, but her parents encouraged her to target a corporate career, despite her own hopes to be a veterinary or an animator. She dutifully followed their guidance, studying for an engineering degree in biotechnology in Mysore, India, and a Masters in molecular biotechnology in Sydney, Australia, before securing a job in India's pharmaceutical industry.
In this episode Divya describes how and why she stepped off her parents' ideal career path to join ActionAid India, and what led to her working for an small urban wildlife rehabilitation centre, where she nursed sick animals, designed documents and reports and created outreach programmes.
The course of Divya's career took another twist when her husband told her he had an opportunity to work in the UK. She explains the challenges of securing her own job on a different continent and why she chose to study for a Masters in biodiversity, conservation and management at the University of Oxford. Divya discusses making the most of transferable skills, volunteering, and landing her current role at Earthwatch Europe. You'll also hear how she manages her dyslexia and what Divya's parents feel about her change of career.
Tiny Forests
ActionAid India
Earthwatch Europe
Not The End of the World by Hannah Ritchie
Season 4 Episode 2: Dr Bushra Schuitemaker, Zoologist, microbiologist and award winning communicator
Season 3 Episode 11: Helen Walsh, designer, writer and conservation sector communicator
Season 3 Episode 5: Jo Faulkner-Harvey, head of charity fundraising
Season 1 Episode 7: Rachel Warren, Professor of global change and environmental
