After attending
The High School, Gloucester, Aplin completed a BSc in Natural Sciences at
Durham University in 1997.[7] She was president of Durham University Orchestral Society and received the Norah C. Bowes bequest for the arts.[8] She completed her PhD in experimental atmospheric physics in the Department of Meteorology at the
University of Reading in 2000. She took up research posts at the
University of Hertfordshire and the
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, working on aspects of space and atmospheric instrumentation, before becoming head of the physics laboratories at
Oxford University in 2009. In 2018 she moved to the
University of Bristol.
Work on atmospheric electricity
Aplin's research has focussed on innovative instrumentation as applied to problems in space and atmospheric science, in particular electrical effects and measurements. She currently maintains the Snowdon space-weather observatory.[9] She has performed experimental work on the
atmospheric effects of ions formed by
cosmic rays, but has been keen to stress that the formed "particles are too small to act as
cloud condensation nuclei",[10] and thus there is unlikely to be a strong cosmic-ray link to global cloud cover.
Her work on atmospheric electricity also extends to the link between volcanoes, lightning and radon gas,[11][12][13] and to other solar system bodies, in particular the
ultraviolet and
galactic cosmic ray effects on
Neptune's atmosphere.[14][15][16]
In a similarly interdisciplinary spirit, Aplin has researched the influence of the climate and weather on western orchestral composers.[17][18]