My Day

On April 12th 2006, my day was slightly out of the ordinary. I was taking part in the Edinburgh International Science Festival as part of the University of Edinburgh’s "Discover Science" event.

My role for the day was to do some "Science Busking" to attract the attention of families in the Museum where the event was being held and direct them toward the science events. The "busking" involved rounding up as many children as possible and putting on a small show that I had prepared.

One of my shows involved telling interesting facts about insects (which since then have also come in useful for entertaining my friends and relatives!). The high point was definitely hearing some of the insect facts that the children shared with me in return - including "My mum swallowed a fly once". 


My usual job -- modelling the brain

This day was out of the ordinary because usually I would be at my desk working on my PhD project. My research involves using a computer to answer questions about how the brain works, specifically the bit of our brain that allows us to see and understand the world around us. I have been building a computer model of this part of the brain and testing it to see if it behaves in the way that we would expect.

I spend a lot of my time using a computer, but I also attend meetings and lectures to hear what other scientists are working on, which can sometimes help me with my own work.


Early interests -- what makes humans work

When I was at school, I was really interested in finding out how things work and understanding why everything around us behaves in the way it does. This led me to choose to study Physics at university. I then decided to use what I learnt about physics to try and understand what makes humans work.

The brain is just like a huge computer, and we understand very little about how it makes us able to see, hear, walk and talk, laugh and cry, tell jokes, enjoy music, fall in love and lots more. I hope that by working as a scientist I will be able to help answer this mystery, and that by taking part in events that encourage children to enjoy science I can encourage lots more people to do the same!