Blanca Diaz Castro, Research Fellow

When I studied biology, the areas I was most interested in were molecular biology and neuroscience, so I decided to do a PhD in neuroscience. During my PhD, I heard a visiting researcher give a seminar about astrocytes and I thought: ‘oh, these cells are fascinating, I really want to learn more.’ I fell in love with astrocytes and that's what I've been studying ever since. 

I usually have meetings with lab members or collaborators and fit in some time replying to emails. Then there is always something like writing or reading research proposals or papers, and quite a bit of travelling for conferences and meetings.

One thing? I like many things. Well, I'm always learning, and it is very creative. Another thing I like very much is my colleagues – they are all very interesting people who are intellectual and curious. I interact with very young people and also with more senior colleagues and they all contribute to very interesting discussions that help drive our science.

One skill is to learn to delegate, because you cannot do everything, and part of learning to delegate is accepting that people won't do it the way you would do it.  Another is time management because my job involves doing a lot of different things. That means knowing the times of the day when you are at your most focused and ready to do certain types of things, and when you are not so focused but can get smaller tasks done.

Something I really like about our environment is the focus on collaborative science versus the competitive approach. For many of us, motivation is not driven by competition, but rather by working as part of a team.

I would like someone who is very curious and excited about science. But also, someone with a good sense of humour who doesn't take things too seriously. Science delivers new knowledge to society and as such, it is a serious matter and it must be rigorous. But we can also have fun doing it. Being creative and generous is something I would also want in a collaborator.

Do what you believe in, even if it may not seem the most interesting research question to others. If you really believe it is the right thing to do, you will find the best way to address the challenges that may arise on the way.