• Question: what is your specilty in scince and why?

    Asked by brooklynne to Ash, Gem, Andrew, Paige, SJ on 22 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by dionnerooney, jordanratcliff, xchelseax.
    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      My speciality is probably electrochemistry.

      Not many biologists use electrochemisty as it’s a pretty unusual technique, but no many electrochemists do biology because they are more interested in the physics side of things. I sit in the middle and try to bring the most useful and interesting of both areas together. It’s worked out pretty well so far. I do it because I love playing with new lab toys and enjoy applying my special skills to other peoples scientific questions.

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      I have two specialties…

      One is NANOTECHNOLOGY… the science of the EXTREMELY small. I studied nanoparticles for biomedical applications… in other words using tiny particles of all different types, shapes, and sizes for delivering DNA and medical drugs inside the human body.

      My other specialty, especially as I enter a PhD in Mass Communications/Journalism now, is SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS. I study all types of things that have to do with how we can better communicate science, especially environmental science, and how scientists can better communicate together to make projects work that span many disciplines of science. I find this work VERY interesting, because I can combine my passion of science with my passion for writing about science and finding out what makes science work… which most of the time is PEOPLE!

    • Photo: Gemma Staite

      Gemma Staite answered on 23 Jun 2012:

      My speciality is microbiology. I find most of pathology interesting, but I felt this was the department with the most hands on, practical based work, so that decided it for me really

    • Photo: Andrew Thomas

      Andrew Thomas answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      My work focuses on surfaces and studying how molecules stick and interact with surfaces.

      Like Paige I also look at tiny particles since by making something really small we can do clever stuff with the energy of the particles. This comes down to Quantum Physics and the Uncertainty Principle, which tells us the more precisely we know where something is the less sure we are of how much energy it has, so as things get smaller we know more precisely where the electrons are so less precisely how much energy they have so they can have more energy.

      We measure where these energy bands are and from this we can make particles which are excited by particular parts of the visible spectrum (the colours of the rainbow all have slightly different energies) which can then be used for solar energy conversion or medical devices activated by light.

Comments