From Pokémon to polar explorer
Polar explorer Prem Gill (BSc 2017) is passionate about outreach, climate change, and Antarctic seals. Here, he details his adventures so far, from capturing never-before-seen animal behaviour to inspiring inner-city students.
Over 110 years ago, explorer Captain Scott set sail on his voyage from Cardiff to Antarctica. Today, Cardiff’s own adventurer Prem Gill works from the eponymous Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, where he studies Antarctica from space.
Working with the British Antarctic Survey and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Prem uses detailed satellite imagery to monitor seal populations. By tracking these seals, Prem learns about changes to their habitats and in turn the effects of climate change on the Antarctic ecosystem.
Prem’s journey to this polar career didn’t begin on expensive holidays or at after-school science clubs. In fact, he drew inspiration from the digital world, and his childhood in an inner-city, working-class environment.
“I grew up with Pokémon on my Game Boy and David Attenborough documentaries on TV,” Prem says.
“Pokémon was my life as a kid, and it sort of mimics what I do now. I still find and identify animals in unusual places, but now I do this using satellite images. And I remember watching Attenborough documentaries, then lying in bed and thinking, ‘Right now there’s an owl or a fox or a badger walking around’. I wanted to be like David.”
Encouraged by his sister, Prem would later apply through clearing to study marine geography at Cardiff. He managed to land the last spot, graduated as the best performing student in his final year, and would continue to be inspired by Frozen Planet footage of Antarctica.
He later followed his fascination with seals to a PhD at Cambridge and has since adventured to the most remote parts of the world.
One of these trips was unfortunately scheduled for March 2020. That month, Prem and his team flew from London to the tip of South America, before they headed for the UK’s base in Antarctica – and by the time they had reached their destination, COVID had spread across the world.
Back then, the team had no swab tests to hand, and Prem’s careful choice to wear a mask while travelling was considered overboard. This quickly changed: slow news dispatches to Antarctica would soon confirm the gravity of the pandemic.
While travelling home, the team managed to escape each pitstop as borders closed behind them, and Prem landed back in the UK just as a nationwide lockdown began.
Having paused his PhD, a director of BBC’s Frozen Planet II reached out to Prem with an incredible work opportunity. It was the same director who inspired Prem as a Cardiff fresher.
“The sequence that led to me becoming a seal scientist was filmed by her all those years ago,” Prem smiles. “It was quite a weird full circle moment.”
Prem’s filmmaking adventures took him to Lapland, where he studied the case of curious hibernating bumblebee queens, which freeze underground before vibrating their wings and defrosting in the spring.
“No one had ever found the nest of this bumblebee, and we were the first people to film them raising their young,” he says.
As well as becoming the star of the episode, the bumblebee queens were a brand-new discovery for David Attenborough, Prem’s childhood hero.
Alongside his field work, Prem also founded the grassroots network Polar Impact from home. Through this organisation, he has supported minorities in polar research, reached talent from underrepresented backgrounds, and worked to change the image of polar explorers.
“When you hear the words ‘Antarctic explorer’, you might not be imagining a young, brown person,” he says. “You might imagine sepia-toned photos of Victorian explorers funded by the queen, and I wanted to change that.”
Prem is keen to show that polar exploration is and has always been a global mission.
“Exploring the Arctic was made possible by techniques we learned from indigenous people,” he explains. “And one of the most famous Antarctic expeditions was the race to the South Pole between the UK and Norway, Captain Scott and Amundsen. But many people don’t realise Japan was also part of the race.”
Prem’s outreach projects range from training students in conservation to producing grime music from seal sounds.
“They have a very eerie, otherworldly sound,” he says. "They have these chirps they use to communicate, which I realised sounded like the grime music I grew up with.”
A range of other creative ideas include transporting students’ poems and artworks all the way to Lapland, where the Frozen Planet team handwrote replies.
And, in partnership with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, he invited children to design and display their own polar art, before turning these into postcards stocked at the remote Penguin Post Office in Antarctica.
Prem then expanded on these projects to create Polar Portals, funded by a National Geographic award.
Bringing faraway lands closer to UK cities, state school children received postcards from Antarctica designed by indigenous artists.
When scanned, the postcards came alive through virtual maps and expedition diaries, detailing the journeys of the explorers who carried them.
Prem recruited scientists and filmmakers from all over the world to become adventurous role models – by sharing their stories, he hopes to demonstrate these careers are possible and accessible.
For his dedication to outreach and building a better world for future generations, at last year’s 30(ish) Alumni Awards, Prem was presented with Cardiff’s inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Award.
In 2025, his mission continues: alongside citizen scientists, Prem is training AI models to speed up his research, and to ultimately keep a watchful eye on the world’s most incredible wildlife.
Find out more
Find out more about Prem and his projects at www.polarprem.com. To take action with Polar Impact, visit www.polarimpactnetwork.org.
