• Question: Who was your inspiration when you were younger?

    Asked by SilentSwiftwave to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Lucymay12.
    • Photo: Rebecca Ingle

      Rebecca Ingle answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I’m not sure I’ve ever really had a ‘role model’ or someone in particular who inspired me. There are definitely scientists whose work I’m really interested in but admire for that but I guess what made me want to go into science was the science itself, not the people doing it.

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I’ve had a few and for various reasons! My biggest inspiration has always been my mum. I don’t want to sound too cheesy (ok, that’s a lie! I love being cheesy) but she is the most incredible woman I know. She’s not a single parent, and had a lot of help from my dad and my grandparents, but she raised us while building up a successful business! When my older sister was born, my mum worked at a town hall in the tax office, but when she was due to go back to work after having me, she told Dad that she couldn’t do it for much longer! She didn’t want to leave two young children with a babysitter all the time and never see us (not that I’m saying there is anything wrong with that at all!) So she came up with a business idea and just did it. She’d be on the phone to a school selling them text books and reading books while changing my nappies on her desk (which doubled up as the kitchen table) and trying to stop my sister from eating everything in sight! She is incredible and has really made something for herself! Though I am not business-minded and have no interest in selling books, her get-up-and-go attitude has always really inspired me!
      When I got to Uni, I met a lady called Sam who did outreach activities from the Uni and we became friends. She is amazing at what she does and is one of the reasons I want to go into science communication and outreach when I finish my PhD. She gets students so excited about what she is showing them and finds the coolest demonstrations to show them while being one of the coolest people I know.
      So I’d say my mum and Sam were and still are my biggest inspirations!

    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Well, my inspiration was always my dad, a blacksmith by trade who worked in docks repairing ships. While I was growing up he used to repair my toys, and I used to think that it was what grown ups did, but then my sisters got married and had kids, and their husbands could not fix the toys, they brought them to my dad.

      He was different, he used to enjoy opening things up and see how they work, and of course, there were a number of items that were irreperable afterwards, but most of the times ha managed to fix them. When I was like 10 he started showing me how to repair things, and that was my first real taste of science. I was always in awe at the things he could do, and he is not a scientist, but his way of thinking is like that of a scientist.

    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Probably my parents. I wanted to be an architect like my father but he discouraged me so I turned to science – never regretted!

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I couldn’t say that I had any one source of inspiration. I think it would be fair to say that it was my chemistry teacher who ultimately excited me enough in chemistry to apply to study it further at university. I was really lucky and my teacher was so supportive of my inquisitive nature, and frequently went beyond the curriculum to show me some really cool aspects of chemistry which – to be honest – only fuelled the fire of enthusiasm I had for the subject.

Comments