Vijay Ravikumar’s love of puppetry continues to influence how he communicates mathematics and science to the public.When Vijay Ravikumar was in secondary school, he would go on long evening walks with his best friend, exploring the city they lived in: Chicago, Illinois. One night in 2000, they passed a rundown shopfront. In the window, many puppets were on display, and a sign read: “Apprentice wanted”.
Academic jobs are seldom scholars’ first jobs. Summer work, student jobs while at university and graduate-school side roles hold important lessons for budding researchers. Thinking about those early jobs years later can provide insights into personal development and the characteristics and skills that can transfer to a science career.
For researchers, non-academic jobs not only provide insights into what they value, but can also offer actual training. Graduate school felt like a luxury when imaging scientist Uri Manor started his PhD in cellular and molecular biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2005.
Manor took a second job while in graduate school to support his wife and two young kids. He started working as a wedding photographer’s part-time assistant and later became a photographer himself. As an imaging scientist, photography was really his specialization, says Manor: “It improved my editing skills as well, although of course you do a lot more editing in photography than in microscopy. Image-manipulation detectives would have a field day with my wedding data.
In 2020, Kucharski became one of the modellers supplying data on the projected spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the UK government. He observed what he had seen before: an over-reliance on the perceived version of reality, which might not reflect what’s actually going on. In early data collected during the first weeks of the pandemic, some 30 cases showed up, but there were probably thousands of cases in reality. “Those true numbers took a long time to get through to policymakers.
Marion Koopmans’s cow-milking days in 1978 stimulated her interest in the spread of infectious disease.Those early experiences were premonitions for what Koopmans would later realize: “I wanted to become a veterinarian, until I became one.” The possibilities for action are limited for a practising vet, especially in animal husbandry. “It’s easy: does this animal stand a good chance to recover? If not, it goes to the butcher. I didn’t find that very satisfying.