Nine-year-old Evelyn Fox wrote a letter to chief scientist Dr Cathy Foley with an idea 'to save the world'

"I think it's fantastic," Dr Foley said.

"I think people with ambition are absolutely critical. I think too often we're a country of tall poppies and we're almost embarrassed to have ambition.

"And, yet, we are terribly ambitious as a country. We love winning gold medals, we love winning the cricket. But we're almost afraid to say, 'I'd really like to be a leader'."

The pair met this week after Evelyn wrote to Dr Foley telling her she had "thought of a suggestion to save the world and ozone layer".

"It is a car that instead of a roof it has a solar panel so it doesn't need to use fossil fuels," she wrote.

Evelyn also sent Dr Foley her car design - and dropped that she would "like to be a chief scientist one day".

Dr Foley was so impressed, she met with Evelyn this week, the pair touring the workshops of the Australian National University's solar racing team.

Evelyn held her own among the team, tinkering with the tools and chatting on everything from hydrogen cars to climate change with Dr Foley, who called her "my apprentice".

"You realise you're going to be inspiring a lot of young people to study science and maths and engineering subjects," the chief scientist told Evelyn.

Young Evelyn, who also loves netball and plays the oboe, said she was inspired to write to Dr Foley while doing enquiry in year 3 at Canberra Grammar School.

"I thought about what I could do to stop climate change and I thought about solar power and solar panels and I thought about solar cars," she said.

"Then, my dad came home with some papers that said [Dr Foley] was the new chief scientist and I wanted to contact her since she's the chief scientist and I look up to her."

The fact the chief scientist was a woman also resonated with Evelyn.

"Yeah, that was pretty impressive," she said.

Evelyn said science was her favourite subject.

"There's always a reason for something," she said.

She saw science in action while visiting the ANU solar racing team, which designs, builds and races a solar-powered vehicle from Darwin to Adelaide in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The next challenge is in October 2023.

Evelyn found another kindred spirit in the solar team's project leader Isaac Martin, 20, who first found out about solar racing by watching Behind the News when he was a student at Weetangera Primary School.

"BTN's cool," Evelyn said.

"So that was all the way back in primary school, and now I'm here," Isaac said.

Dr Foley, a physicist and mother-of-six who was appointed chief scientist in January this year, said she was glad to have inspired a young girl to think about a future in science.

"Maybe because I'm a woman she felt she could write to me, so that was really lovely," she said.

"It was also really encouraging to see her think, 'I can do this, I have ideas, I can take them up with someone'. That's why I was keen to follow up on it. You've just got to build on that.

"Encouraging girls, and all young Australians to think about, 'What can I do in science and tech that can really make a difference'? It is so vital as we have so many big issues."

And the pair left this week's special meeting as friends.

"Thank you, Dr Foley," Evelyn said.

"Call me Cathy."

"Thank you, Cathy."