• Question: which scentist do you look up to? why? :)

    Asked by thecookieman to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 17 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      There are loads of scientists I look up to, sadly most of them are no longer with us!
      I think if i had to choose one thats still alive, i’d pick Robert Edwards, who won this years Nobel Prize for Medicine. He pioneered IVF treatment and along with Patrick Steptoe, was responsible for the birth of the first IVF baby here in Manchester. He has done a lot of work in understanding why some people have problems getting pregnant.
      I was honoured to meet him a few years ago at a celebration for 30 years of IVF treatment and he was really inspiring and lovely!

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      I really look up to people who are really clever but at the same time, modest and just normal, down-to-earth people who can have a laugh and have interests outside science. The people who love their work make you also want to do what they do!

      I got to sit in on a lecture by Jim Watson, one of the guys who worked out the structure of DNA, a few years ago in Cambridge, and as you can imagine, there were hundreds of people squeezed into a small dusky lecture hall. There were people standing outside the doors, all trying to peek inside. At the end of the lecture, everybody got their copies of his book out (The Double Helix) and queued up for his autograph. I didn’t have a book so I drew a caricature of him and shoved it in front of him. He stopped signing the books, looked up at me, pretending to be all serious, then cracked up! I still have that drawing at home! He’s one of the guys that I truly admire.

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi thecookieman. People often ask me this but I don’t really have a good answer. I admire my friends for the work that they do and I find other peoples’ work very interesting but I never really look up to anybody. I guess I don’t really see the point – even the best scientists were young and inexperienced once, and generally I’m just happy being me!
      Is there anybody in particular that you look up to?

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      I actually mostly look up the the scientists I know and who have taught me- i see how much they have achieved over a lifetime of research and hard study, what they may have had to sacrifice for that and how passionate they are about what they do. Ive been very lucky to work with some awesome people 😉

    • Photo: Kara Cerveny

      Kara Cerveny answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      This is a great question — we all need role models. There are historical role models — people like Barbara McClintock and George Streisinger — and there are the everyday role models like my advisors (Rob Jensen and Steve Wilson) as well as other scientists who have helped me be the best scientist I can be (such as Carolyn Machamer and Hiromi Sesaki). You can google all of these people and learn a bit more about them. Do you have a favorite scientist?

Comments