At the end of 12 Monkeys (1995) we saw the female scientist on the plane with the doctor. She had small talks with him and said she works for "insurance" of sorts. I interpreted this as the past version of herself and she is in charge of building the shelters. As in her job is to build these underground shelters in case an apocalyptic event happens (kind of like fallout shelter).
However, some of the reviews I had seen suggested that she is from the future and was sent back to collect samples/whatever. This seems odd to me as it would make the small talk at the start completely out of character.
What is there to suggest that the scientist on the plane is from the future?
