Category: Research
Growing up in Science: Anne Urai
Anne Urai Ihad a careless childhood. I was good at school, but could never quite decide on my passions. I dropped high-school physics and chemistry in a streak of rebelliousness, only to realize my mistake a year later and catch...
Growing up in Science: Clinton Cave
Clinton Cave - "Protect your health, find mentorship, and help those around you. And just for the record, "You DO belong here."
Finding a Passion for Physics and Virtual Reality Headsets
Haxhi Pantina: "To this day, I still like reading about stars and the universe, but quantum mechanics, quantum optics, and quantum information contain the largest part of my daily routine."
My Career Path Following Water from the Mountain to the Sea and Across an Ocean
Jeeban Panthi: "My professional and personal journey to understand water continues to unfold, and I was a part of a multi-year collaborative research project on climate and water in Nepal."
Sleeping Astrocytes: Failures and Successes on the Journey to Publication
Laura Bojarskaite: "I want to be honest and tell you the story of how science actually happened for me and not how science should have happened according to all the rules, supposed-to’s, and textbooks."
Limits to Perfection: Searching For Order in Chaos
Kumaresh Krishnan: "Understanding when the details of a model are satisfactory for the research questions being asked is one of the most critical steps in my work."
Crisis After Crisis During Pandemic Field Day Experiments
Catalina Mejia: "Whether to a friend, a colleague, or another graduate student, make the small efforts to reach out and ask for support if you are in need of it."
Fishing for Change: How Fish Tanks and Textbooks Taught Me to Fall in Love with Science (and Discover its Flaws)
Jeromy DiGiacomo: "I hope my story can highlight that in all its objectivity, the STEM community is not immune to prejudice or discrimination and that we have a lot of room to grow."
My Career in the Midst of a Pandemic: Overcoming the Limitations of COVID-19
Rodrigo FO Pena: "I have reached a really great point in my career where I can give back to my home country without ever leaving my current research..."
Flickering Lights in the Darkness: How Microscopy Shaped My Scientific Path
Natalie Nannas: "Watching those flickering green dots shuttling around the cell convinced me that my future was in research."
A Long and Winding Road: One Disabled Scientist’s Story
Katie Stofer: "Mine is a story of [social and financial] supports, and how I am able to do my research not only because of them but in spite of my chronic illness, which I’ve just recently come to recognize as...
I Thought Only Neurologists Could Study the Brain
Kathryn Bonnen: "The realization that I was not alone put me on a path to recovery that has allowed me to truly enjoy science again."
Growing up in Science: Jane Willenbring
Jane Willenbring: "My Ph.D. on rates of glacial erosion in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic seemed long and difficult. I thought about quitting many times, but I'm glad I didn't quit."
Breaking the surface: Lessons on resilience and rebuilding from planarians
Divya Shiroor: "When I look at my publication today, I can’t help but be struck by how 5 years of blood, sweat and tears coalesce so tidily into 5 pages of a journal. I wonder how differently things might have...
Ice, heat, science, and acting
Morgan Dundon: "I think we should be more accepting of our many dimensions, both academics and actors alike. In my world of materials science, there are solid materials that can exist in more than one form or structure."
Stories in Science Nanochat: Alfredo Spagna, PhD
Alfredo Spagna, PhD: "The role for the scientist is making science accessible...we have to improve our way in which we communicate new discoveries as a milestone in a scientific process."
This Is Not The Way Beyoncé Made It Look
Bianca Jones Marlin: "I came to realize that my connection with my daughter, who’s now two-and-a-half years old, isn’t punctuated moments of oxytocin release. It’s our life together."
Unexpected lessons from conducting research with older adults
Julia Nolte: "Becoming a gerontologist has taught me many unexpected things about the way the “stages of life” translate into lifespan research. Given these surprising lessons, my advice to other budding researchers is this: know that being an expert in...
My experience as a Kurdish Undergraduate Scientist in Iraq
Soma Sardar Barawi: "As a Kurdish nationalist first, and a future forensic biologist second, I desperately want to serve my homeland through the use of modern forensic technology."
Humans of HBI: Isle Bastille
Isle Bastille: "The largest challenge I’ve had to overcome is allowing myself to dream big. Early in life, I was limited by my environment. My mother is an immigrant and knew very little about the process of attending college in...
Humans of HBI: Caroline Palavicino-Maggio
Caroline Palavicino-Maggio: "During my childhood, I watched violent crimes transform my neighborhood. Now as a postdoc, I aim to understand the origin of aggressive behavior that underpins violent crimes. Though my work is rooted in neurobiology, I hope it will...
How Studying the Brain Transformed my Brain
Lori Saxena: "I began to understand that I didn’t love neuroscience because of the medals and acclaim it gave me, but because of its universality. Because it can be studied and tested and corrected—an ever-expanding, ever-improving existential philosophy."
How Much Poop Does a Worm Make When They Only Eat Zuccchhiinnniii?
Vivekanand Pandey Vimal
Finding Clarity in Chaos
Hazal Uzunkaya: "If you asked me what I wanted to be at the age of five, I would say a Veterinarian, which later turned into an Astronaut Veterinarian, and then became Prime Minister Astronaut Veterinarian. I dreamed big, however scattered...
Building Self-Confidence Through Science
Lauren Tereshko: "I realized I had stopped putting positive energy into myself, and grew angry and restless. Ashamed of my stagnation, in a moment of catharsis, I made the decision to apply for grad school."
Bringing the Bench to Life
Steven J. Del Signore: "As a basic cell biologist who uses fruit flies as a model organism to investigate the causes of neurological disease, the gap between my science and its potential impact on human health at times feels very...
Take A Chance
Inna Nechipurenko: "I switched model organisms and shifted the focus of my research to cilia – microscopic signaling “beacons” of our cells. Specifically, I wanted to understand how they form and function in specialized sensory neurons."
Finding My Way into the Sandbox
Bulbul Chakraborty: "Looking back, I think I was always attracted to what challenged me. It could be a mathematical puzzle, a song I was told wasn’t easy to sing, a book I was told I shouldn’t attempt to read because...