Ashleigh Griffin
Ashleigh Griffin, a winner of the L’Oreal fellowship for women in Science award, works as a research fellow for Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin.
What exactly is a ‘Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow’ - Doesn’t fellow mean a man ?!
Not since the class system! The term ‘research fellow’ means a research position in a university or academic institution. It’s a step up from a research assistant or officer and normally requires a doctoral degree, as I have.
How did you get to where you are now?
Through a mixture of hard work, luck and lots of support from friends and family. But none of that would have been enough if I hadn't also had a deeply held fascination and curiosity about the natural world.
You studied in Scotland, was that any different to schools elsewhere?
One of the wonderful things about a Scottish education is that you don't have to specialise; I'm sure I'm a better scientist now as a result of my well-rounded education. I loved school, and did art, english literature and languages as well the sciences.
Is it true that you studied Zoology before continuing to your PhD?
I studied for a Zoology honours degree at Edinburgh University and it seemed very natural to go on to do a PhD. My PhD project was looking at cooperation in groups of meerkats and I still study the evolution of social behaviour today. Now, I mainly work on social interactions in populations of bacteria: very different organisms, same questions. That's the beauty of evolution: all living things behave according to the same underlying forces.
Do you get a lot of freedom in your job?
Like any job, there are ups and downs but I consider myself to be immensely privileged to do the work I do, with the people I work with. As a research fellow, I am completely independent and free to pursue any line of research that I think is interesting.
How varied is your job and what makes it exciting?
I spend a lot of time at my computer at the moment, writing, reading, analysing data, emailing. But there's a lot of variation from week-to-week: a few weeks ago I was at the Natural History Museum ornithological collection at Tring, comparing colouration in males and females from the skin collection; back in December I was sitting in a teepee 2km from the arctic circle, meeting students studying social insects;
A few years ago, I was thinking about what made groups of meerkats tick, now I'm trying to understand the behaviour of bacteria living in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. I would never have been able to predict that change of course but anything can happen when you're free to follow your nose. To have that sort of intellectual freedom in a job is a real privilege.
Are there any perks of the job?
Well last week for example, I was getting my photo taken with other winners of the L'Oreal fellowship for women in science for Marie Claire!
Read more about Ashleigh and more Inspirational Women like her....
http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/groups/griffin/
