Here is another #MoreToScience post! This time, I'm chatting with my colleague from the Biochemical Society, Lorenza, who is our Training Manager and looks after the training events and the online course on biochemistry. She's got an MSc degree in medical molecular biology from the University of Westminster, and before joining us at the BiochemSoc, she worked as an academic mentor at London Metropolitan University, which is where she discovered her talent and passion for teaching and e-learning.
Lorenza Giannella, Training Manager at the Biochemical Society
I chose to pursue a career in biology because… I find fascinating how the human body works (and I didn’t want to spend several years studying medicine!). Immunology, the subject that studies the immune system, and molecular biology have always been my favourites. I find particularly interesting all the “checkpoints” our body uses to avoid diseases, and even more the situations in which a disease can develop despite these control processes. Over the years, I discovered I really enjoy teaching and developing e-learning tools , but the spark for science is always there.
The thing I find most exciting about my job is… working with molecular bioscience experts. They are inspiring and I get to be involved in many different scientific topics, instead of focusing on a very specific one, like researchers do. I also really enjoy the fact I get to be creative in my job, by using different learning tools or create infographics for our online courses.
However, sometimes I have to… sit at my desk for a very long time, to send a lot of emails or write contracts for the organizers of our courses. I prefer to play with different technologies or have meetings about exciting science than to carry out admin tasks, but unfortunately it’s necessary.
When I was at school I wish I… knew that science is much cooler than photosynthesis and rocks! I attended high school in Italy and I studied classical subjects like Latin and ancient Greek. At the beginning of school, maths and science were subjects I really didn’t enjoy and studied at the bare minimum to pass. I wish I enjoyed them and learnt more at that stage, studying a scientific subject at University was a bit of a struggle at the beginning.
I find it amazing to know that… the trillions of microbes in our gut can influence our health and metabolism? There's ongoing research to see if a faecal microbial transfer from a healthy lean person has an impact on obesity (yep, that's a poop transplant!)
In my free time I love… to spend time with friends, cooking, going to the seaside and to nerdy scientific events.
To find out more about Lorenza, follow her on Twitter @L_Giannella!
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See you next month! In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line @GabrieleButk.
In case you missed it, read the blog post about animal use in research from last month – '5 things school children should know about animal research' & another case study on careers outside research - science writing - '#MoreToScience – what’s it like to be a science writer?'.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here represent my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
