Meredith Temple-Smith is an academic who mostly researches and writes about sexual and reproductive health. She is fascinated by human behaviour, culture and ethnicity. She is a great observer, which is evident in her newest book, 'From Patagonia to Professor', a memoir of her early adulthood. In 1985, as the only woman among a group of men, she went to Patagonia on a fieldtrip to trap marsupials. She tells the story of this hard physical journey with remarkable candour, reflecting on whether the qualities she developed as part of that trip gave her the resilience to forge a successful academic career.