Can you imagine a job that shapes the future of entertainment? How cool would that be! Catherine Warren’s company, FanTrust, helps television, film, animation, comic and video game companies come together to create new forms of compelling entertainment, as well as working with technology companies on the newest devices, including iPads. They also make entertainment hits by galvanizing fans around the world to interact with their favourite shows and games through social networking and fun activities like contests.

Warren’s job not only allows her to be at the forefront of some pretty cool technology – she was an international judge for the Emmy Awards, walking the red carpet and dining at the Emmy Gala with Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental activist Al Gore!

“It happened to bring together so many things in one happy occasion,” Warren reminisces. “It was a celebration of my twin loves, media and the environment, a multicultural crowd and a hero’s welcome for the former U.S. vice president.”

Warren first became interested in science and physics in high school and was fortunate to have an excellent teacher at Point Grey in Vancouver who really tapped her natural curiosity.

“I thought that there was nothing more challenging than physics and that if I could understand the fundamentals then perhaps other pursuits in life would seem easy by comparison,” explains Warren. “Today, when I say something ‘isn’t rocket science’ I really mean it!”

Warren quickly found an amazing undergraduate school for theoretical physics, and, once there, developed a passion for mathematics. She loved how physics and math fit together like a puzzle, and how physics helped her to better understand the universe and our place in it. Today, she is nurturing the same insatiable curiosity at home with her own family, using a blackboard in the kitchen to explore ideas about physics and math with her husband and kids. She wants other families and young people to realize that science is a unifying force.

“Science needs you. We are at an historical turning point on so many fronts - environmental, medical, geopolitical - all of which could benefit from your unique scientific contributions,” she urges. “Science opens so many doors in life, providing you with a combination of credibility, confidence and courage to tackle whatever you choose to do, in any field.”