• Question: What is your favourite thing about your area of research? What inspired you to become a scientist?

    Asked by anon-186285 to Trystan, Andy, Danny, Verity on 11 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-186216, anon-186307, anon-186812.
    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      My favourite aspect about my area of work is how much there is still left to discover. We are learning new things every day about infectious diseases and molecular microbiology. Its really fascinating. The work us scientists do really has an impact and that’s very rewarding.
      .
      I was inspired to become a scientist as I like to find out new things, science was one of my stronger subjects at school, the career prospects are good and I enjoyed the subject.

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      I love that it includes so many different things. In order to get a good picture of why Ebola spread, you have to think about the virus, population movement, culture, politics and chance events. It’s a knotty puzzle that involves really cross-disciplinary thinking and I find it endlessly fascinating!
      I was inspired to do biology by a book I read when I was 16 called the Wildlife of our Bodies. It showed me biology isn’t all figured out, there’s so much stuff we don’t understand, and how evolution really impacts our diseases today.

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      My favourite thing about what I do, mathematical modelling, is that it can be applied to many different aspects of the real world. Where I work, there aren’t just people interested in infectious diseases, there are also people answering questions about neuroscience, traffic, evolution… you name it!

      I was inspired to become a scientist after spending some time working in a neuroscience lab after my undergraduate degree. It was here I really learnt about mathematical modelling and its potential!

Comments