"I had a telescope before I was 10, and I have had one ever since."

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Charles Jenkins

Born in Vereeniging, South Africa, 1955
B.S.C. Physics and Applied Mathematics

University of the Witwatersrand, 1977

Ph.D. Astrophysics

Cambridge University, UK, 1981

 I was born in 1955, in a small coal-mining and steel-making town in South Africa. I grew up surrounded by slag heaps and the smoke from blast furnaces. However, on a windy night the smoke would all blow away and the amazing night sky of the Southern hemisphere would be revealed. I think I had a telescope before I was 10, and I have had one ever since. That was how I became interested in science. I also remember that many of my late father's chemistry textbooks were on the bookshelves. I had certainly figured out enough chemistry to be a popular resource to my mischief-making schoolmates at the boarding school I went to when I was 12.

After school, I went to university in Johannesburg and read physics. These were tempestuous times in South Africa; Soweto was burning and the security police were a common sight on the campus. Many of the student activists disappeared into house arrest. For my part, after my BSC degree, much to my surprise, I won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, England. I joined the Radio Astronomy Group there and did a PhD in astrophysics. After the usual itinerant post-docs I worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, concentrating on the design of telescopes and astronomical instrumentation.

I joined Schlumberger in Cambridge in 1997, and have been working mostly on various new methods of communicating with downhole equipment while drilling.

In my leisure time (not much of that with three children in the house!) I climb and sail. Sailing is easy in flat, wet Cambridgeshire. Finding something to climb takes more effort.