-
Asked by Pizza and Pie to Hephzi, Imogen, Jen, Jennifer, Tom on 9 Mar 2015.
-
Hephzi Tagoe answered on 9 Mar 2015:
I wouldnt’ say my actual lab is high tech but the institution as a whole is pretty high tech and yes! my lab and most of the other departments do get regular funding.
The whole funding process is quite intense though. There are a lot of things you have to show to prove you’re the best person for the money and this includes things like,
1- how beneficial is what you want to use the money for
2- your own academic track record
3 – How much experience you have etc
-
-
Jen Machin answered on 9 Mar 2015:
Because of the work I do, my lab doesn’t need to be too high tech, but some of the other labs in my department have some amazing technology! The main high tech thing I use is an eye tracker, which is a camera that follows the pupils in your eyes and can tell where you’re looking on a screen. We use this to work out what adults and children look at when they learn new things – it doesn’t hurt, and you can’t even tell when your eyes are being tracked. You do have to wear a sticker on your head to help the computer track you, which can make you feel a bit silly, especially if you forget to take it off when you leave the lab 🙂
When I go out and do science outreach sessions with local children, we have some EEG headsets that allow you to control things on a computer screen using your thoughts!
-
Imogen Napper answered on 9 Mar 2015:
Yes!
I could be working with a microscope one day that is worth over a million pounds!! Or I could be working with an instrument that can look at the molecular formulation of a material!
Scientists often have to apply for funding for their research. This can be quite boring sometimes, but it is worth it. It helps keep your research relevant!
-
Jennifer Rudd answered on 9 Mar 2015:
My lab has a lot of equipment in it, but if “high tech” means has lots of brand new machines and the latest version of Windows etc it’s not high tech. I work with a chap who is in charge of the laser lab though and that is full of lasers and high tech instruments. We use instruments that have been the same for the last 20 or 30 years and so we have quite a few old instruments around, but that’s ok because they do exactly what we need them to.
For funding, I’ve been lucky and always worked in places that are well funded. The last group I worked in got a multi million euro grant from the european union and my current group has a multi million dollar grant from the US department of Energy. It’s not easy to get funding though and you do have to write lots of proposals.
-
Thomas Barrett answered on 9 Mar 2015:
I am guaranteed funding for another year and a half. My lab has maybe £3million (about £2 million is one machine) in equipment and we have maybe one of 40 machines in the world that can do the measurements I am doing. So we are pretty High tech! Most of the stuff I use it pretty top end actually like our clean labs.
Once my PhD is over I will have to look to get funding from somewhere else which is kinda like a job interview.
Comments