• Question: where do you do your reserch

    Asked by scottdukes to Cesar, Emily, Jamie, Kate, Philippa on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Cesar Lopez-Monsalvo

      Cesar Lopez-Monsalvo answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I do research at a University. Sometimes I do it in London, sometimes in Southampton, and sometimes in Mexico. In my case, since I do not have any lab, I can do physics and maths basically everywhere, but it helps a lot having an internet connection and a lot of paper and pens.

    • Photo: Jamie Gallagher

      Jamie Gallagher answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I don’t go to far- I have two labs. Both are in Glasgow. One is a chemical lab, lots of sinks and fumehoods. the other is a clean room. This means I have to wear a special suit that only leaves my face uncovered as even dust particles are dangerous to the work that goes on there. The lights are also yellow so only low energy light shines on our samples.

    • Photo: Emily Robinson

      Emily Robinson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I also have two labs, which are at the University of Manchester. One is a chemical lab where I can make up chemicals or run normal lab assays and the other lab is where we do all the animal research. The animal lab has to be in a special place as to do animal research there are a lot of laws and regulations that you need to follow (or you can go to jail!). So the animal lab has to have a special license from the government, so does the person carrying out the work (me) and the project I’m working on also needs a license. There are a whole team of people whose job it is to look after the animals to make sure they are happy. I have to wear special protective clothing, mask and gloves when I am in the animal lab to protect me from getting an allergy to the animals (as this can happen).

    • Photo: Kate Clancy

      Kate Clancy answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I do my research at my uni, the University of Illinois in the USA, but also at the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site, which is a field site in the mountains in southern, rural Poland. I do my fieldwork there because the women there live more traditional lives; they are farmers and work hard in the fields, and eat more traditional foods rather than fast food takeaway. So I can compare their lifestyles and hormones and bodies to a more urban environment and try to understand why they are similar or different.

      I actually did do a couple days’ work in London one year at an infertility clinic. I still need to analyze that data!

      I am also probably going to go to Kerala, India soon, to start a project there on environmental factors that lead to a high number of twins.

      And I hope to be working at a friend’s field site in Guatemala in the coming years, too.

      This is the lovely thing about being an anthropologist — I get to travel the world, meet lots of different people, and see all the different ways they live.

    • Photo: Philippa Demonte

      Philippa Demonte answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      @scottdukes I normally do my research at the University of Leeds. Sometimes this can be in the library, sometimes in a computing lab or the Earth Sciences lab, but the best research often comes from meeting up with other scientists. That’s the great thing about university – it brings you into contact with so many interesting people.

      At the moment I’m doing research at Montserrat Volcano Observatory.

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