When I grow up...

So PZ has posted in reply to a question posed by David Ng - Do Biologists have Physics Envy? I'm going to have to disagree with PZ's reply with a resounding YES, I do wish I had a better grasp on physics. That said, I also think that all (ok, not all, but most) physicists should stop chasing elusive particles and seductive mathematical models and start working on problems posed by biology.

So, here are my replies to the 3 questions:

1. What's your current scientific specialty?
I just finished my undergraduate degree in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology, so if that's a specialty, then it's mine. However, that's a bit vague, so I'll narrow it down by saying that I'm most interested in developmental neurobiology, and that I'm also well-versed in the niche field of hair cell death by ototoxic drug exposure. I could go on here (for days, probably) about everything I find interesting, but really, I'll spare you. You get enough of that if you read my blog. :)

2. Were you originally pursuing a different academic course? If so, what was it? Yes. I started my undergraduate career at Stanford studying mechanical engineering. I burned out, dropped out, went through an "I'm going to be an art major!" phase, and then rediscovered my love of science prior to enrolling and finishing my BS at UW.

3. Do you happen to wish you were involved in another scientific field? If so, which one? Well, not exactly, but I do want to expand my knowledge base into other fields. I am probably going to apply mostly to neuroscience programs, instead of traditional cell biology or genetics programs, because I want to gain exposure to some more of the computational and physics side of things. I think it's important to start formulating our biological questions in ways that people more trained in computational sciences can understand and contribute to, and in order to do that, I need more exposure to math, especially network theory and statistical modeling, and to physics, including quantum physics and physical chemistry.