The seminars are an enjoyable opportunity to learn how other scientists became who they are. I was especially fascinated by the differences that emerged; some knew what they wanted to do from kindergarten while others experienced a wild transformation at a later stage of their college education. I might fall in the first category but I really don’t know, maybe I’m yet to experience my college transformation.
The group of speakers brought different dimensions to the whole seminar experience – a collaboration I found impressing. One such a dimension was the interlocking of seemingly different fields to explain a given phenomenon. A professor of biology and evolution anthropology, Susan Alberts gave us a glimpse of the work she does with baboons in Kenya. She studies mainly the effects of social environment on Darwinian fitness in these animals. I thought her work was an intersection of a sense of adventure and the love for science.
The other strong aspect of her work was the importance of team-work. She elaborated on how most of the data she used in the lab was collected by locals. The collaboration with locals is interesting in that it can be very useful to get other people thinking differently about the animals they previously viewed as merely creeping creatures. It is also important for the creation of more scientists interested in studying the primates from the African continent.
It was amazing to experience many fields of science from the perspective of experts. I certainly would love to have more of such seminars in the future.
