Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A scientist best known for neuroscience and stroke research, now President and Vice Chancellor at Manchester University.
On the island
Eight records
I felt, first of all, given so much music in Manchester, I had to choose a Manchester band.
English Dances, Op. 27: II. Andantino
It's the theme tune for the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.
It was one of many, many blues records we had at home.
Paul Mealor (composer of 'Wherever You Are')
I am in awe of people who can sing. I can't sing.
This dates back to my youth... a handsome young man with a nice car at art college.
It was the favourite piece of music of my predecessor Alan Gilbert.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:24How close are we, the human race, to actually understanding how we're made and how we work?
In some ways very close, some parts of the human body and its functioning is very well known. However, the part that I now work on, the brain, there is a lot that we don't know still.
Presenter asks
6:34Given the extensive decades of work that you've done, how easy is it really, honestly, to keep hold of that sort of enthusiastic simplicity in your work?
I think most scientists find it quite easy because what could be more exciting than trying to understand things around you or your own body? Whether you're a cosmologist or a environmental biologist or a physiologist, it it's understanding things that are here. So I still find it fascinating.
Presenter asks
16:52I'm imagining your results were probably good enough to get into Oxford or Cambridge, should you have wished. Why didn't you wish?
I didn't feel they would suit me really. I thought they would be very traditional, lots of very clever people who would work very, very hard and be very serious. That's probably completely unfair, as I know now from many great people who go to Oxford and Cambridge, but that was my view of it, that there would be people not particularly like me.
The keepsakes
The book
It's going to be a big book. On teach yourself Swedish, because I feel very embarrassed that I can't speak Swedish.
Presenter asks
26:48Why do you think it is, given that there are a fair amount of women in research science, so very few of them make it to the upper echelons?
I think there are a number of reasons. Of course, it's more difficult with childcare commitments. I think there's a lack of role models. I think science is not a very forgiving career in that, you know, you work long hours and you need to travel. But I think there is also something about a confidence and an attitude. I wasn't going to apply to be vice-chancellor. It was never in my plan, and also I didn't think I'd be very good at it. But I read a book, and one of the things it was a female coach said that men do have a tendency to look at a job and think I can do at least half of that, I'll apply. And women have a tendency to think, there's nearly half of that I can't do, I won't apply. And it was a bit of a sort of light bulb moment for me. And a lot of women I tell that story to, they immediately go, oh, yes, yes, yes, that's exactly how I feel. Are you one of them that does not have children? Does not have children.
Presenter asks
30:21How has [the £9,000 tuition fee] affected the people that you see coming through the door?
It hasn't affected the number of students who are applying, which surprised me. The type of students? No, actually. I was very worried because the University of Manchester takes great pride in the fact that it has a lot of students who are first in family to go to university and a lot of students from very poor backgrounds, over a quarter of our students. But I'm pleased that the number of students from those poor backgrounds haven't declined in applications. What I'm worried about is we've yet to see students graduating with that debt, and that may well alter their choices of either their career or whether to go on to further study. And so on and so on.
“I don't think I was very good at planning, and certainly being a vice-chancellor was never in my plans.”
“I think most scientists find it quite easy because what could be more exciting than trying to understand things around you or your own body?”
“I think all good scientists are very creative. I think science is interesting. It has some words and some phrases that if you don't know them you feel outside it. But they're only jargon.”
“It wasn't so much stressful, it was exciting.”
“People have asked me if I've made sacrifices to get where I am in my career, and I I don't think of it that way at all.”
“I realized that I had two shoes that looked the same at the back, but they had different height heels, but they were both left feet.”