• Question: if you could work with one scientist who would it be ?

    Asked by reegan to Anne, Carolyn, Joe, Mariana, Nick on 20 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joseph Devlin

      Joseph Devlin answered on 20 Mar 2010:

      Hi reegan,

      Depends on whether you mean historically or currently living? If I could pick anyone ever, it’d probably be Aristotle — how cool would it be to work with one of the most curious, creative and brilliant minds ever? In terms of modern scientists, there is a guy named Mortimer Mishkin in the US whose work is just fantastic and who I respect enormously. If I had a chance to work with Mort for a little while, it’d be awesome.

    • Photo: Carolyn McGettigan

      Carolyn McGettigan answered on 21 Mar 2010:

      There are lots of great scientists active in neuroscience at the moment, but if I had to pick someone from the history of science then I’ll go for Georg von Békésy. He was a Hungarian scientist who did pioneering work on the function of the human inner ear, and won the Nobel prize in 1972. My keenest passion is thinking about all the amazing work our auditory system does in the perception of speech and music, and von Békésy’s work is fundamental to much of what we know today. Also, from my reading about him he seems like an interesting guy, who was equally passionate about art as he was about hearing, and took a great deal of inspiration from art when thinking about his science. I found his Nobel acceptance lecture and it’s full of images of Egyptian sculpture and the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Hey, maybe when I win my prize (!) I can play people excerpts from the Eurovision Song Contest and describe how my experiences in karaoke influenced my research! (see my profile…) ; )

    • Photo: Mariana Vargas

      Mariana Vargas answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      From the past or from the present?
      From the past, someone I admire a lot is called Andrew Huxley, he still lives in Cambridge but is retired, and he worked in the 50’s and discovered a lot of interesting things about how the muscles work, and he got the nobel prize (with Alan Hodgkin) for being able to describe with mathematical equations how electrial impulses in neurons work.
      From the present, I really liked working with Hugh P. C. Robinson (where I did my PhD, not only because I learnt a lot but because it was a nice working environment and I had a lot of fun). And of course I really like working where I am at the moment, with Ole Paulsen because he is trying to link discoveries from the cellular to the behavoural level with his research.

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