• Question: What was your inspiration

    Asked by flydd96 to Emily, Kate on 24 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Kate Clancy

      Kate Clancy answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      Thanks, Flydd. Where do I even begin? It depends on what you are asking about — my inspiration for being a scientist, for being a professor, for being in this IAS project.

      For being a scientist and professor, my inspiration was the knowledge that things in women’s health were going terribly, terribly wrong, and if more people didn’t try to change the way the medical system understands and treats women, it would only get worse. I just had to be one of the people to do research into differences in women’s biology, in order to show the mistakes that were being made by treating women all the same, or by seeing them as diseased if they didn’t fit a narrow idea of normal.

      My inspiration for I’m a Scientist is all the cool people I follow on Twitter. I am a scientist, and I am a blogger, and I thought my outreach ended there. I write to thousands of people on my blog. But I really only reach adults who already care about science. I wanted to impact younger people, people who were curious about human biology but didn’t know anything about it, or people who didn’t really think they like science.

      Because I teach at university and I have met too many students who absolutely hate science. We need to give people good experiences with science so they can see how it can transform your life, make you a curious, skeptical, intelligent person, and fill you with knowledge, wonder and love for the world around us.

Comments

  • Photo: Emily

    Emily commented on :

    Hi flydd96, I think there were many places were I got my inspiration from. One of the earliest people I looked up to was my older cousin, as he didn’t do as well as he could have in his exams at school, but at university he put so much effort in and became super organised that he got a 1st (which is the highest grade you can get) and then he went on to train as a dentist. I took his advice and did not take for granted that I would get good grades and forced myself to be organised, and I am always thankful that he was there to look up to!
    Then in science I look up to my supervisor who seems to juggle a million responsibilities, with teaching, supervising PhD students and staff, writing grants and papers, doing lots of public engagement, having a good family life and still managing to be a lovely person who always has time for you if you have a problem! So I think I am lucky to have good role models around me, but I think there are always people you can look up to… it doesn’t always have to be that they do the same thing as you, but maybe you just think they have a good attitude to work/life.

    Who do you look up to for inspiration? In the future would you like to be a good role model for students?