• Question: What influenced you to study what you do? Have you always wanted to be a scientist? (p.s I hope this question isn't to pearsonal) :)

    Asked by lucygill22 to Chris, Emily, Martin, Natalie, Tamsin on 17 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      No! That isn’t too personal! 🙂

      I think I would have always wanted to be a scientist if I thought it was possible to be one. I didn’t know any scientists when I was growing up. There were no events like this one to let me know that science was a job I could aim for. So it took me a while to catch on.

      I knew from about the age of 7 that I liked science – I was just very curious about everything and I thought that the answers I wanted came from scientists (whoever they were!).

      I studied chemistry at university but I had already learned how to program computers at school – this is very common now, but when I took my GCE exams (they weren’t called GCSE in those days) most schools didn’t even have computers. I know! Difficult to believe isn’t it, but it is true.

      So I worked as a programmer and a load of other jobs for a long time until I discovered that my programming skills would be useful in some types of research science and then I was hooked!

      I was very lucky to get a job with a university team that was interested in the brain and this allowed me to do a PhD in neuroscience. A PhD is a science project that you work on for three or four years which proves you are good enough to be a researcher.

      Brains are amazing – that is what tempted me to stay with neuroscience. But there are plenty of other amazing things to do in science. If someone offered me a job working on the chemistry of biofuels, or the biology of deep-sea creatures, or anything else that fascinates me, that would be great.

      Hope that answers your question. If not ask me another one. 🙂

    • Photo: Emily Cook

      Emily Cook answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Not the most personal question we’ve had – and thanks for being so poilte!

      No i haven’t always wanted to be a scientist. It wasn’t until I was doing GCSE and we had a really crazy physics teacher that I started to get interested in science. Before that I’d always found it a bit boring – labelling diagrams of flowers and measuring the temperature of water as it cooled – not much fun. But as we got to learn more interetsing things I found it fascinating and I love finding out how things work. By A level I was hooked and still the more I learn the more interesting it becomes.

    • Photo: Natalie Stanford

      Natalie Stanford answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      I’ve always enjoyed science, but I’m not aware of always wanting to be a scientist. I’ve always just decided to do things based on whether I enjoy them or not. Which is the same reason why I ended up studying what I am studying at the moment. It seemed interesting when I was writing my PhD proposal and so I decided it would be good to study it for 3 years!

    • Photo: Chris Cooper

      Chris Cooper answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Not too personal at all. I’ve answered the scientist bit elsewhere – basically I got inspired chopping up fish I was supposed to cook, watching TV science programs and reading science fiction (e.g. Isaac Asimov – himself once a biochemist like me!).

      As for what I do, I work in the general area of bioenergetics. At university I had a rather crotchety chain-smoking Head of Department who lectured in this area. He gossiped about people in the research area he was lecturing in. This was fun. But it was clear he himself had done some of this ground breaking work himself! He was a really clear lecturer. Suddenly I realised this is what I wanted to do.

      He would be amazed to be my role model. Actually he wouldn’t know who I was ……..

    • Photo: Tamsin Gray

      Tamsin Gray answered on 19 Mar 2010:

      I’ve been interested in science since I was about 11 (before that I preferred creative writing and wanted to be a writer like Emily). However, a lot of what influenced me to do what I now do is the lifestyle that goes with the science. I like working outdoors and in remote and beautiful places that not many other people have the chance to visit. I think it is really important to do something that allows you to be in a place and live in a way that will make you happy, it’s not just the subject that is important!

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