Back in April, I was fortunate to be invited back to Nottingham Trent University’s Bioscience Degree Showcase to judge this year’s poster presentations, and share my career journey with students 🧬

I attended 4 sessions, and was invited to choose winners from 3 of those sessions. Don’t worry, the remaining session was well looked after too, I promise! It was a very tough job, as all the posters were outstanding. Every student who presented their work should be so proud of themselves 👏🏻

Keisi studied the effects of stress on protein localisation in neurons using SH-SY5Y cells. This can be a challenging cell line for someone just starting out in cell culture, but Keisi did a great job of keeping them healthy and thriving. She got some fantastic images on the microscope too, which have really stuck in my mind 🔬

Temi investigated Chaga Mushroom Extract’s effect on proliferation and cell viability in MG63 cells. I’ve never worked with these cells before, but they looked gorgeous in her photos. She also did a fantastic job of explaining the MTT assay to me, which is an assay I’ve never performed. She helped me to visualise the steps as if I were in the lab doing it right next to her 🍄

And Elisabeth created and proposed a new workflow for using AI that puts sustainability and ethics at the forefront of both AI use and AI policy. I know very little about AI, and she posed solutions to problems I would have never thought of, like the carbon footprint of asking wordy, or ineffective, questions 🤖

After each of the 4 sessions, I gave a brief overview of my career, where I was also able to reassure students that a period of unemployment or a gap in their CV can be overcome. I also talked about disability in STEM, summer internships, networking, continuous professional development, and the importance of being yourself 🎤

During the break on day 1, I found myself in the Super Lab doing some filming for an upcoming project. The Super Lab is where I conducted my experiments for my own undergraduate thesis, so this was truly a full circle moment 🧑🏻‍🔬

Then, finally, during the break on day 2, I attended the Bioscience Employer Advisory Board meeting, where we discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning and wellbeing, and how to improve work-like experience in the coming years 💼

📷: Kindly provided by members of the NTU team