• Question: what got you in to your area of science?

    Asked by spudlington1 to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi spudlington1,

      Long story made short – I did my PhD using very expensive electron microscopes to look at incredibly small particles collected from the air; I found this fascinating, but was told no-one was interested – so I started studying much bigger particles; then some scientists discovered that very small particles might be harmful if you breathe them in; and on top of this, people began to get very excited about nanotechnology – part of which was all about making very small particles.

      So all of a sudden, I found a lot of other people were interested in the stuff I was interested in, and I ended up having the opportunity to carve out a career looking at developing new technologies like nanotechnology safely.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      We’ve done this one too…Can you search for the question on the site?

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hi supudlington1…my junior school teacher, Mr Snow, in 1979 was unusually into environmental issues for his time and used to tell us all about how we should not pollute the environment, don’t drop litter etc I carried this enthusiasm on until I was in my late 20s and then decided I ought to really go into a career in this subject matter and so I did and here I am:).

    • Photo: Emma Pilgrim

      Emma Pilgrim answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I have always had a love of the natural world and insects, plants and birds in it. I also loved watching David Attenborough who studied Natural Sciences so I thought that this was the way to go!

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hey spudlington.

      So, I’ve always been drawn to biology – though at school I also really enjoyed chemistry and some aspects of physics.

      I found genes and evolution really fascinating, so to combine my interests at university I chose a course called Biochemistry and Genetics, since that seemed to make sense!

      I did enjoy this course but found that as chemistry got to a higher level, it wasn’t my cup of tea. So I stuck to the biology/genetics side and applied for this course run by Cancer Research UK (which I was lucky to get) – I wanted to focus on disease and cancer has evolution links, plus a heavy genetics element. Plus it’s useful – I’m still very interested in evolution and might like to go back to it at some point.

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