In high school, Vijay Reddy faced a trigonometry problem that she struggled to solve. She remembers spending hours building models out of ice-cream sticks until she cracked the problem. With parents and a grandfather who were deeply committed to education, she already saw problems as challenges to be overcome, a perspective that has driven her throughout her career. Spanning her 20-year career at the HSRC, Reddy spoke to Andrea Teagle about her contributions to studies in education, skills planning and the public relationship with science.