Question: what made you get interested in biology? and how did you go about following your dream?

Ozge Ozkaya answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hi Bonnie
There is a bit on that in my profile but here it is again: When I was 11 our biology teacher brought in some owl pellets for us to dissect. Basically the owls swollow their prey (for instance a mouse) whole and later they regurgitate the fur and the bones in what’s called a pellet. You can find these on the floor in woods sometimes. By dissecting those you can see exactly what the owl has eaten and you can identify the mouse species for example that live in the area that the owls hunt. I was absolutely fascinated and that’s when I decided to become a biologist. I went to school in Turkey and the system is a bit different there. I had to take a national exam to be able to go to University, and all my choices were Biology. The degree is also 4 years in Turkey as opposed to 3 years in the UK. I really enjoyed it though. Then I wanted to carry on and study more. There was a call for a scholarship to come and study for a master’s degree of your choice in the UK, so I applied and I was selected!!! In the meantime I was also applying to turkish universities just in case I didnt get that. So I came to Leicester and studied for an MSc. in Molecular Genetics. And still it wasnt enough! I wanted to do a PhD (that’s what makes you Dr. Ozge Ozkaya :)) but I didnt have money and I wasnt eligible for most of the funded projects due to my nationality but in the end I managed to get a scholarship from Queen Mary University of London and studied for a PhD in Developmental Biology using zebrafish as a model. After that I came back to Leicester and started working on my current project in krill 🙂 So you see it wasnt easy but at the same time every one can do it 🙂