• Question: What made you want to become a scientist in that specific area?

    Asked by mrkrabs to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 13 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by 11wiloma, simran10, iexterminateyou.
    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I read an inspiring book called “Critical Mass” which talked about all the ways physicists had been useful to social scientists, and I thought “wow, I have some skills that might benefit society”. It wasn’t until many years later that I actually got the chance to actually do it… so that’s been pretty exciting.

    • Photo: Robert Thompson

      Robert Thompson answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I was inspired by a pretty wacky lecturer at university. When I went to uni I had no desire to continue to become a scientist but he managed to inspire me and change my mind.

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I loved all the courses in quantum physics I took in Uni. It’s so different from our usual world and way of thinking about things that it can be really hard to understand it properly. At the same time, it’s all built on very straight forward and beautiful mathematics, which we can use to understand and predict stuff. When I saw a PhD job in quantum physics I jumped at the chance to work in the area.

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I think as I progressed through biology from A-level to university I just realised to get a real understanding you need to look at smaller and smaller things. The logical conclusion was structural biology, looking at the atomic forces that make up things like proteins, sugars, fats e.t.c. Also my supervisor in my final year was excellent and got me really interested in this area of science.

    • Photo: James Boone

      James Boone answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      In the last year of my MPhys degree I did a project with a very enthusiastic supervisor, and we made some good progress in graphite science. I got really interested in the whole topic and I was offered a PhD afterwards. I’m coming to the end of that now, and I’m going to train to be a science teacher so that I can feel like I’m putting my knowledge to good use 🙂

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