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University life is an incredible journey – a time of immense learning, growth, new friendships, and yes, a fair bit of navigating newfound freedoms and pressures. It’s a period where you are shaping not just your understanding of your chosen subject, but also the person you are becoming and the future you are building. Part
A life between pandemic and departmental closure.
I have recently presented a mini-lecture about thermal physics. It was part of an interview and rather off-topic relatively to my research. I had fun diving back into ‘pure’ physics and I thought to share the material I presented. I also built and brought with me in the auditorium this 1m copper rod to visualize
Our organization is committed to equality, diversity and inclusiveness. For example, Dr Clara Madeup benefitted from our ‘return to work’ programme that permitted her to come back to work after an extended 2 years maternity break. Clara is now a tenure track associate professor leading in the field of biotechnology. How many Claras and Johns
English football has announced a three days boycott of social media to raise awareness against online abuse. I am no footballer and I even do not follow football but I follow Formula One, and thanks to Lewis Hamilton engagement against racism I got aware of this initiative. Sport should be all about coming together in
I more excited than other times for a talk I will deliver next week. When invited, I read the list of speakers and I noticed so many names of people whose science I follow very closely. This time something is different though. I read their papers since I am a student, papers they published perhaps
I guess that if you landed here, you know what I am referring to, but let me clarify the subject of this post for the benefit of the youngest scientists. During peer-review, we get good and bad feedback, either deserved or not. We can then respond and revise our work. However, it is not rare
My holidays are spent with the nose into papers and the hands on the computer keyboard, working on quinquennial report. But I am back to my family in Italy, specifically in Sanremo, city of flowers, city of music, as it used to be the largest flower market and an important production center of flowers, and
We have to be optimistic and hoping in a prosperous future for everybody, particularly in this period of the year, but optimism on its own makes very little to avoid sliding towards avoidable catastrophes. We can hope no storm will hit our towns in 2020 and live a happy life. At the same time, we
“I have worked hard for three years and now that I believe I understand the mechanism, the funding is over”. “I am at the third referee round in five different submissions and I am always getting different requests”. “My grant was not funded because of insufficient preliminary results”. “I do not understand why they got
As an immigrant in the UK, it took some time to understand the deeper meaning of the remembrance day. In fact, remembrance day is lived by different British people in different ways, and to truly embrace this event, one has to stare a red poppy and feel what it means for them. You should have
There are grants, there are great words written, there seems to be strong support, but how working between disciplines really work? Let me tell you at least how this has worked for me. This is a long read, but if you do not wish to go at the bottom of it, my advice (sadly) is
Although I am no expert in livestock production and food chains, I do recall debates on making abattoirs more humane by ensuring that animals are not aware of their fate. In other words, the poor bovine should not see other fellow animals being slaughtered fearing for their lives in a long and slow-progressing queue towards
Most of the times, I write this blog for those two youngsters that might learn something by accidentally landing here. I wished to share with you a few things that might happen when you age, at least academically speaking. This is what happens when you attend FoM for a few years… *** I have met
This is a preliminary draft for a leaflet aimed at outreach events. Following the work we have done on Women in STEM at the last year Cambridge Science Festival, this year we’ll add a second leaflet to be more inclusive. This will be a word search puzzle that we will release into the public domain
About a decade ago, I went to a PI during a retreat to ask a question. Nervously, but politely, he asked me to be left alone as he was rather anxious for a talk he was about to deliver. A few hours later, a PhD student at the time, I was freaking out for my
British people are lucky, as they have a wealth of literature to read from, a rich history to learn from and a great number of world-leading experts to listen to. They also have a lot of selfish, ideologically-biased and intellectually dishonest politicians to listen to. Not that all politicians are dishonest, but many – if
January 2018 has been a watershed moment for me for something very simple and important such as… emails. Back from Christmas Holidays after visiting family and friends in sunny Italy, I was confronted with a wall of emails like many other professionals and colleagues. I had experienced this every year for many years, but this
Over the last year, the widespread occurrence of sexual harassment and misconduct in the movie industry hit the news helping, with the amplification of social media, to raise the extent of the problem to public awareness, not just in Hollywood, but in everyday life of women. Have you wondered if sexual harassment is an issue
Moral hazard Over the last decades we have seen everything about the good and the bad of free market economy; we have learnt a lot about the consequences of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the tendency for one person to engage in riskier behaviour when the consequences of this behaviour will be dealt by others.
Do you know when you are at the airport with some time to kill, and you go to a bookstore? Do you know that revolving shelf with business-oriented books suggesting how you will have a great career if you read them, yes, the one just near the other shelf with books on mindfulness, homoeopathy and
Open Access is established to guarantee free access, redistribution and use of primary research. Open Access makes available to the public what has been funded by the public, therefore, democratizing access to knowledge. I support these ideas so much that I believe Open Access, in its current form, is… cheating or – at least –