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Asked by purplesherbet to Laura, Nicola, Norman, Sandra, Thanasis on 11 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by megs7777777.
Question: Who inspires you?
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Laura Soul answered on 11 Mar 2013:
Good question, lots of people have inspired me in lots of different ways. The people who inspired me most in my specific area of science were scientists like Stephen Jay Gould, Darwin and Mary Anning (look them up if you want to know more about them but they were all people who were interested in fossils and evolution like me!) because they worked on the kinds of things that I find interesting and also they came up with new ideas and worked really hard even when lots of people disagreed with them or said they couldn’t do their work or that they weren’t good scientists. I think it’s really important for scientists to challenge the accepted view even if people don’t like it, if there might be a better way of doing something or understanding it.
As well as that, people who I find inspiring are the people who are really good at explaining things about science to other people. Some things in science are very complicated now but there are people like David Attenborough, or Jim Al-Khalili (he explains physics) or even all of the explainers at the science museum in london (I don’t know if you’ve been there but if you get a chance to go they’re the people in the red t-shirts and if you ask them any question they can help you find the answer). Lots of people find science really interesting and want to know about it even if it’s not their job. I think a scientist should be able to explain their work to anyone and so I find these people really inspiring becasue they can do that.
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Sandra Phinbow answered on 13 Mar 2013:
The one person who inspired me to go to university was a character in a film. Rita in Educating Rita. She was a bored middled aged housewife who wanted more from her life. She went back to finish her education. And I was very late finishing my education too, I was in my mid 20s when I first went to university. And so although it’s just a film, I took inspiration that a middle aged, or at least a mature student can go and learn and earn their degree. I’ve made up for it now though, I have my first degree, my Masters and I am a Chartered scientist.
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Nicola Wardrop answered on 13 Mar 2013:
Oh, loads of people! Famous scientists, not so famous scientists, people I work with, non scientists, my family, even all you guys taking part in I’m a Scientist! I can’t really think of one person who stands out as inspiring me any more than others, so I will just stick with that answer I think.
When I see other people who are enthusiastic about something (about anything, doesn’t have to be science), committed to some sort of cause, are amazing at explaining complicated things to people, or who just want to learn new things, I find it inspiring! But I tend to find nice people much more inspiring than unfriendly people, so I always try to be as friendly and helpful to other people as I can!
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Nicola commented on :
Actually – I just thought about this again, and at the moment I am feeling very inspired by the team of people I am working with in Australia! They are young, ambitious and very talented and they are leading their own projects quite early (they are leading big projects by the time they are 30 years old…this is normally not done until about 35 – 40 years old).
They also work in a really big team – all contributing to each others work, which I think is great, even including the students in this and helping them to learn a lot. This has inspired me to try to develop my career in the same way and to support more junior students and staff as much as I can, by including them in my research!