• Question: whats your biggest achievement

    Asked by anon-381700 on 24 Jan 2024. This question was also asked by anon-381634, auks1maw.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 24 Jan 2024:


      I don’t really have a biggest achievement… Some people might say becoming a professor is a big achievement but I’m not sure. I would say however, that perhaps one of the most important things to me was when my first PhD student became a professor! That felt great as I’d helped to get him on the academic ladder.

    • Photo: Nathalie Oguntona

      Nathalie Oguntona answered on 24 Jan 2024: last edited 24 Jan 2024 12:45 pm


      I believe my biggest achievement is yet to come. I’m proud of having somewhat successfully moved and lived in a couple of countries on my own at a fairly early age

    • Photo: Emma Singleton

      Emma Singleton answered on 24 Jan 2024:


      Probably having a successful team at work whilst juggling family life at home!

    • Photo: Amit Vernekar

      Amit Vernekar answered on 25 Jan 2024:


      We are trying to address some challenging research problems, however, there are many failures. I think when we address these challenges, I would say that something is achieved to push the boundaries of the research area.

    • Photo: Henry Duke

      Henry Duke answered on 25 Jan 2024:


      The part of my job that I am most proud of is being able to say that I support some of the best aircraft ever built, as well as providing support to the Army and the RAF, even though I wasn’t able to join up for health reasons.

    • Photo: David Bremner

      David Bremner answered on 25 Jan 2024:


      During 2020 i successfully obtained Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AfHEA) which simply means that when i teach students as part of my work i do it in such a way that it is in line with, and meets the guidelines set down by a national framework.

    • Photo: Erin Pallott

      Erin Pallott answered on 25 Jan 2024:


      I think my biggest achievement so far is getting a prize for a talk I gave at a conference. I find public speaking very scary, and I get so nervous, so it was a great achievement for me!

    • Photo: Adam Washington

      Adam Washington answered on 25 Jan 2024:


      According to other scientists, by biggest achievement was my work on examining how birds birds generate colours within their feathers. While I’m no ornithologist, I’ve also always loved that paper because I was able to create a colour picture of a bird’s feather entirely by examining x-rays data from the feather.

    • Photo: John Clark-Corrigall

      John Clark-Corrigall answered on 26 Jan 2024:


      At work probably supporting our degree research students in the lab, they came in with very little practical experience because of disruptions from the pandemic and left confident in their own abilities. Their growth you can see before your eyes whereas it’s more difficult to see your own.
      Outside of the lab, I ran an ultra marathon on the hottest day of the year in 2022 (hot in the north east isn’t thermometer breaking) but 34 miles in the blazing heat was certainly a challenge. I can’t describe how good the pint of pepsi was watching the local cricket team whilst waiting for a lift home.

    • Photo: Kirsty Ross

      Kirsty Ross answered on 31 Jan 2024:


      Probably submitting and getting my PhD. I had an awful final year at uni, so my 2:1 felt a bit meh. I didn’t feel like I earnt it. My PhD was a whole different story; blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of late night Dominoes pizza went into that one!

    • Photo: Hannah Fawcett

      Hannah Fawcett answered on 6 Feb 2024:


      I organised a meeting in the House of Lords that people from around the world attended. I was really proud to bring people together to share my research and think about how we can improve support for people taking part in jury duty.

    • Photo: Rachel Edwards

      Rachel Edwards answered on 6 Feb 2024:


      In science? I’m not sure… I won a prize for doing public engagement, which was lovely. Probably though it’s the paper I have in a journal called Science which a LOT of people have read! 518 people have mentioned it in their own science papers. Which is pretty cool 🙂

      Outside of science, it’s persevering. We had to have IVF to have kids (where you need a lot of help at the hospital), and I managed to balance that with doing my job. As an academic I have some fixed things to do (teaching), and some time which is very flexible, which helped.

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