I have always been fascinated by how the human brain works, how can all of our thoughts, feelings, memories and senses be contained in a jelly-like blob?

How do we know about our environment? How do we form memories and then remember past events? How can we try and prevent our brain from not working properly? These are some of the questions that I am really interested in trying to figure out. In our laboratory, we do experiments to try and learn how brain cells communicate and how we can restore this communication when brains are injured or diseased.

At work, I also do some teaching to university students in the subject of neuroscience and we also do lots of science communication activities like “I’m a Scientist”. Sometimes I have to travel to other cities around the world and meet with other scientists to talk about our work and make new friends and work-mates.

Occasionally I have to give talks to other scientists or to members of the public, which can be pretty scary, but its so exciting to talk about your research and let people know about all the amazing things we are learning about the brain.

I tend to spend a lot of time on my computer, reading and responding to emails and writing research papers or grant applications. Sometimes I have to read other people’s research and decide whether or not it should be published in a journal or if they should receive money to continue their research.

I also do some lab work, usually helping my student perform an experiment and look at her results. About once a fortnight I have a class to teach for university students. This could be a lecture or a lab class.

I am interested in a particular sort of brain cell, called an Astrocyte. They are called astrocytes because they look like stars!

We do lots of science outreach and communication activities with school children in Perth. I’d really like to get some proper brain models so we can show the different parts of the brain.

I’d also like to get some plastic moulds so we can make plaster models of human and animal brains that children can paint.