• Question: What is the most unexpected thing that has happened in your career?

    Asked by anon-175658 to David, Alex, Alison, Ella, hayleypincott, Thomas on 15 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: David Mills

      David Mills answered on 15 Jun 2018:

      This is an interesting question, probably the most unexpected thing for me hasn’t been the actual science or anything I’ve discovered, but it’s getting involved in science communication.

      I was always a very painfully shy person, my idea of torture would be having to give a talk in public. I used to just hide away and get on with the work. The about 9 years ago I found myself in a position where I had to confront my shyness and actually go talk with people.

      To my surprise I found I started to enjoy it, and people were actually happy to talk with me! I contacted my university public engagement people and asked if they could put me in contact with people and events. It’s all taken off from there.

      I’d say that’s the one thing I really didn’t expect in my career.

    • Photo: Hayley Pincott

      Hayley Pincott answered on 16 Jun 2018:

      I have to say the same as David. As I work in the NHS and it is all so regulated there is little chance of anything unexpected happening, saying that though never say never.

      But for me it has to be the public engagement I’m doing. I started doing thing when a work colleague suggested I became a STEM Ambassador and since then I’ve visited primary schools to loads of hands on sessions to demonstrate pathology and how we take scientific knowledge and apply it in a practical way. I have found that I’ve really enjoyed doing this and when I hear primary school children tell me that science is meant to be boring but the practical lesson they had with me was fun, it’s quite humbling. I’ve spoken and worked with about 400 children and although it can be challenging I love having the opportunity to do this.

    • Photo: Ella Mercer

      Ella Mercer answered on 16 Jun 2018:

      As I’ve just started out in my career as a scientist I can’t really pinpoint something that stands out as unexpected. There have been quite a few ‘wow! I can’t believe this is happening!’ moments including 1) actually getting my PhD – seven of us were selected out of over 300 applications 2) I spent a bit of time working in a skin lab and managed to grow 3D skin structures in a dish from stem cells (we never (never ever ever!!) thought it would work!) 3) Taking part in I’m a Scientist! I’m just starting to get involved in public engagement and this is such an amazing first event for me to be a part of!

    • Photo: Thomas Perriment

      Thomas Perriment answered on 18 Jun 2018:

      Being hunted by wolves! I was on an ice-cap in north Canada called the Grantt Ice Cap on Ellesmere Island. Food is very hard to come by there as it’s mostly wolves and arctic hares, occasionally some birds and that’s about it! We had of course brought all of our food with us, however even through 99% of it was freeze-dried to cut down on weight, we brought a big log of salami and some hard cheese that we could bury in the snow at the start of our work, and dig up when we were about to leave so that we had something to look forwards to at the end of the trip. Little did we know, that there was a wolf pack which were tracking us and found our camp (even though we hid it very well!), sniffed out the food, dug it up, and ate the lot! Because they associated that food with us, or were just curious perhaps, they then followed us for quite some time (we only ever spotted them by binoculars) which worried us a little. Definitely unexpected!

    • Photo: Alison Hughes

      Alison Hughes answered on 20 Jun 2018:

      I got lost in a cave underwater when we were on a dive. The battery of my light was really dull and I couldn’t see properly as we were going through. I was a very new diver and had no sense of direction or orientation underwater (I still don’t really) and I was in the dark for ages (probably 2 minutes)

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