A turning point was at school when I wanted to be an historian, then I got some bad grades in History and better grades in science and maths, so that turned me towards being a scientist, and I started to enjoy science more.
Several times I’ve thought about quitting and doing something else, but then something good happens, like an exciting experiment or opportunities to work in a fun place which keeps me excited. It’s always nice to hear good things about your work and what you are doing, which has turned me away from quitting a few times
Probably deciding to do particle physics for my PhD instead of observational cosmology (it was pretty much a toss-up). I don’t know how my career would have gone if I’d made the other choice, but it would certainly have been different.
During my PhD working on computer models of star formation my supervisor encouraged me to go to an astrochemistry conference in Germany. This opened up a whole new science to me that I didn’t know about before. I asked the people there lots of questions and learned how to run my own chemical models for my star formation simulations. Much of my work since then has involved astrochemistry.
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