• Question: Do you always work in your lab or do you sometimes go to other places (excluding lectures/talks)?

    Asked by Lottie to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 17 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Josh Meyers

      Josh Meyers answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      My lab is my computer, so in theory I can work from anywhere. I am currently working from home. In a minute I may go and sit in a coffee shop and work from there. However, the lab is the place where you can learn best from the people around you and so it is not good to always work away from the lab.

      It is up to the scientist to network with other labs. Meeting other scientific groups that conduct similar research allows you to share knowledge and help each other. I have been talking to a group in France and they have offered me the chance to go and work in their lab for a month.

      So yes, it is possible to work from elsewhere. But usually, I am in the lab.

    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      I analyse data rather than building things, so my “lab” is my office, and I can take it with me when I go somewhere else. But the experiment my data comes from is in Japan, and I go there several times a year to take my turn in actually operating it.

    • Photo: Rob Temperton

      Rob Temperton answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      I work in two labs here in Nottingham. Each year I generally spend at least a month in total working in other labs in different countries – a lot of the data we collect is only possible using huge instruments that individual universities can not afford to build/run. So basically, I work all over the place!

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I have an office in the Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Unit. This is a mile or so from the main university campus and teaching hospital).

      When groups of people have meetings (that I have to attend) they often choose to have their meetings at the big hospital because it is more convenient for the majority of them. So I often have to go there.

      I also use the MRI scanners in the physics department that are on the university campus, and occasionally attend seminars or training courses, most of which also take part on the university campus.

      Sometimes, I am even allowed to work from home – particularly if we’re looking after the dog and my boyfriend has to travel for work. So sometimes I work from the comfort of my own living room!

    • Photo: Chris Armstrong

      Chris Armstrong answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      I occasionally work further afield with collaborators, generally in their labs or just for meetings.

      But as a field we have few full scale facilities dotted around the globe, if where I’m based doesn’t have an opening for an experiment coming up we will go to labs across the world to complete experimental campaigns.

Comments

  • Photo: Kevin

    Kevin commented on :

    I often go on site to take samples and meet the people I’m doing experiments for. I recently went to a chicken farm outside of Bristol. I have done work abroad as well with scientists in Beijing in China looking at pesticides in fish.