Professor Dame Jane Francis

Professor Dame Jane Francis is castaway by Kirsty Young.

As the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, she is no stranger to surviving in extreme conditions. Much of her career research has taken her to the Polar regions.

Travelling with her fossil hammer, her principal interests are in palaeoclimatology and palaeobotany.

She specialises in the study of fossil plants, and how they shape our understanding of climates in the distant past, when Antarctica was much warmer.

In 2002 she received the Polar Medal, for her outstanding contribution to British polar research, and in 2013 she became the first woman to head the British Antarctic Survey.

DISC ONE: Lou Reed - Perfect Day
DISC TWO: Enya - Orinoco Flow
DISC THREE: Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
DISC FOUR: Vangelis - Antarctic Echoes
DISC FIVE: Men at Work - Down Under
DISC SIX: Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things
DISC SEVEN: The Who - Who Are You
DISC EIGHT: Richard Pearce and The Choir Of Trinity College, Cambridge, conducted by Richard Marlow - Fauré's Requiem: "In Paradisum"

CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
BOOK CHOICE: A big encyclopaedia of plants of the world
LUXURY CHOICE: Horseradish sauce

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.