• Question: What has been your biggest inspiration in your respective careers?

    Asked by anon-197267 to Sonal, Rosanna, Matthew, Marleen, Dan, Atreya on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Marleen Wilde

      Marleen Wilde answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      That’s a difficult question, I don’t think I can pin down one thing. I know my own curiousity and determination has always driven me to keep going, trying to achieve more and better. Coming from a non-academic family, working class you might call it, none of my family had high academic achievements but also were limited in their options as I have grown up in former east Germany. I always found school quite easy and therefore had choices that other people didn’t have and did what I liked at the time. I originally left school at 16 as I wanted to work in a hospital and do something good for people. Only then I learnt more about research and the options, met inspiring people (patients and staff) and went for the night school to be able to study and progress. Most of my progress and development into sciences is driven by experience I had and people I met throughout my life. Lots of people played a role in which direction I moved, which interests I developed and lots of different people helped to get me there.

    • Photo: Matthew Selwood

      Matthew Selwood answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      Not particularly glamorous, but my A level physics teacher. Before him, I wanted to do Chemistry, as I didn’t think physics was interesting or had anything fun to do. He told me all about his stories in the RAF as an engineer, and would give me articles in old “New Scientist” magazines about cool experiments being done around the world, and incredible new discoveries. That was what really opened my eyes to what physics really is, and what it could be, beyond a dull classroom bouncing tennis balls for a “gravity” experiment.

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