Growing up on a small farm just 10 minutes outside Lautoka, Janet Reddy often found herself living a very different childhood from many of her friends.
While most of them lived in town, she was one of the few who grew up in a semi-rural setting, surrounded by nature.
Today, that early connection to the environment has taken her from Fiji to one of the world’s leading universities, with the Cornell University graduate preparing to begin a PhD in Marine Science and Conservation at Duke University in North Carolina.
Although her academic path now seems clear, Janet said it was not always the direction she envisioned for herself.
When she first left Fiji to study in the United States, she admitted she was uncertain about her future. It was an experience from her childhood, however, that would ultimately shape her life’s work.
Cyclone Winston, which devastated Fiji in 2016, became an epoch moment for her.
“I remember reading the news afterwards and seeing that big countries were still debating whether climate change was real,” she recalled.
“It just seemed ridiculous that climate change was a lived reality for so many of us, while countries that could do something about it were doing nothing.”
That experience ignited her passion for environmental conservation, particularly the protection of the ocean, an area she says has always fascinated her.
Her years at Cornell, together with research opportunities and international travel, have broadened her understanding of conservation beyond the classroom.
An exchange semester in South Africa, where she lived with a local family in a rural village, revealed striking similarities with her own upbringing in Fiji and reinforced the importance of place-based knowledge in protecting natural ecosystems.
Despite studying abroad, Janet highlighted that she has always felt a responsibility to return home and contribute to Fiji.
“I knew that not many people from a small island nation had access to the opportunities I was getting,” she said.
“I knew that I wanted to come back home eventually and give back in some capacity.”
Looking ahead, she hopes her doctoral research will help address gaps in Fiji’s marine science, particularly the study of humpback whales, which migrate through Fijian waters each year but remain largely unresearched.
Janet’s decision to journey far from the familiar comforts of her small family farm outside Lautoka to one of the world’s leading research institutions was never just about academic attainment.
Her pursuit is shaped by a genuine desire to gain the knowledge and experience needed to help protect the natural world which first inspired her and ultimately bring back much needed wisdom to the place she has always called home.
- FULL STORY in The Sunday Times this weekend
