This podcast forms part of a series in which we introduce members of the iLEAPS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and also the Early Career Scientist Network (ECSN) Committee and forms part of the iLEAPS Online conference during March 2021. In this podcast we talk to Dr Benjamin Poulter who is a research scientists at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, USA, where he studies the terrestrial carbon cycle. Ben uses a variety of techniques such as remote sensing data, ground-based observations and experiments to build ecosystem models to understand global processes. Ben discusses his career path, passing on useful advice to early career scientists, and also explains the future direction of iLEAPS and the scientific areas that we need to understand and research more, as a community, in the future.