Rachel Elizabeth McCarthy was born in Preston, Lancashire. She was educated at St Mary's Catholic Primary School in Leyland, Leyland St Mary's Catholic High School and studied six A-levels at Runshaw College, Leyland. She studied Natural Sciences at Durham University as a member of University College. She graduated in 2006 with double first class honours in Chemistry and Physics, later completing a doctorate in climatology.

In 2008, she joined the Met Office soon becoming a Senior Climate Scientist, specialising in Climate Impacts and Disaster Risk Reduction. In 2010, she was seconded to London to advise the UK Government Department of Energy and Climate Change on policy matters relating to weather and climate, including renewable energy provision. On her return to the Met Office she worked as Private Secretary to the Met Office Chief Scientist Prof. Dame Julia Slingo and became the first to hold the post of Expert Scientist in Communications.^{[citation needed]}. She was contributor to and editor responsible for the Met office Hadley Centre's contributions to Sir John Houghton's 5th edition of Global Warming:the complete briefing.^{[1] [2]}

In 2009, she established ExCite Poetry,^[3] the Devon arm of the UK Poetry Society. Within six months of its formation, ExCite Poetry became the largest regional arm of the Poetry Society by a significant margin with well over 200 members and was consequently the focus of the first of a series of poetry workshops with Ruth Padel on BBC Radio 4.^[4] Between 2009 and 2013, she co-hosted a monthly arts-review show on Phonic FM,^[5] hailed by The Sunday Times as "providing some of the most inspiring broadcasting in the country".^[6] In 2013, she became Director of the Exeter Poetry Festival.^[7]

In 2015 McCarthy won the first Laureate's Choice Award.^[8] In 2016 she converted the research behind the book into a one-woman multimedia experience called 'Alphabet of Our Universe' with numerous shows across the UK and an exclusive interview with McCarthy in The Guardian on Alphabet's Oxford premiere.^[9][10]

The same year she was appointed as an Expert for the European Commission, to advise on the scientific validity of projects submitted under the EU's H2020 Climate Programme; the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020).^[11]

In 2015, she was chosen by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as one of four of the most exciting new voices in British poetry that year. Her first pamphlet "Element" was published in June 2015 by Smith Doorstop under the imprint of Laureate's Choice,^[12] taking its impetus from the naming and properties of the transition metals of the periodic table. The Laureates Choice scheme continued for a further four years and to celebrate the culmination of Carol Ann Duffy's tenure as Poet Laureate eight of McCarthy's poems and an interview were published in 'The Laureate's Choice Anthology' in 2019, which anthologised the work of all twenty 'exciting and eclectic new voices in contemporary verse'.^[13]

Poetry edit

• Anthologised in The Laureate's Choice Anthology (2019) ^[14]
• On Preservation (commissioned by Blue Door Press and Poetry in Aldeburgh (2017).^[15]
• Element - Laureate's Choice Award (2015) ^[16]
• Anthologised in the Poetry Business Book of New Contemporary Poets (2014) ^[17]
• Survey at 70˚N (2013) ^[18]
• Mendeleev's Horse, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (2011) ^[19]
• Two Followers of Cadmus Devoured by a Dragon (2010) ^[20]
• Murmuration (2009) commissioned by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for Anthony Gormley's One and Other project ^[21]

Scientific papers edit

• McCarthy, R., 2015: "Climate Communication: Bringing It All Together" - presented at Our Common Future Under Climate Change Conference, Paris, July 2015",^[22]
• Met Office., 2014: "Too hot, too dry, too wet, too cold: Drivers and impacts of seasonal weather in the UK" ^[23]
• Met Office., 2013: "The recent pause in global warming(3): What are the implications for projections of future warming?" ^[24]
• Met Office., 2013: "The recent pause in global warming(2): What are the potential causes?" ^[24]
• Met Office., 2013: "The recent pause in global warming(1): What do the observations tell us?" ^[24]
• Palin et al., 2013: "Future projections of temperature-related climate change impacts on the railway network of Great Britain", Climatic Change, 120(1- 2), 71-93 ^[25]

Articles and essays edit

• Postcard from a Floodplain Near You(Free Word", May 2016).^[26]
• A Different Sort of Provocation(The London Magazine, March 2016).^[27]
• Climate Variability and Change: Migration and the Changing Concepts of Identity and Home in the Poetry of European Women (Cambridge Scholars, March 2014).^[28]
• Weeding Out Success: The Inaugural Ted Hughes Award (The Bookseller, March 2009).^[29]
• Midas Touch: What Carol Ann Duffy's Appointment Means for the Laureateship (Poetry News', Summer 2009).^[30]
• Great Expectations for Duffy (The Bookseller, May 2009).^[31]
• Andrew Motion: Leaving the Laureateship (Pan Macmillan, April 2009).^[32]Archived 2010-02-19 at the Wayback Machine
• On Gender and Poetry (Pan Macmillan, Feb 2009).^[33] Archived 2010-02-19 at the Wayback Machine

• Exeter Poetry Festival