• Question: What has been a turning point or defining moment in your work as a scientist?

    Asked by anon-258063 on 26 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Alex Leide

      Alex Leide answered on 26 Jun 2020:

      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

    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 29 Jun 2020:

      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.

    • Photo: Alison Young

      Alison Young answered on 13 Jul 2020:

      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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