About Jenny
By day: cell biologist at UCL. By night: novelist, broadcaster, science writer, sci-lit-art pundit, blogger and Editor of LabLit.com. I blog about my life in science, not the facts and figures.
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories
- Academia
- AI
- Art
- Careers
- Domestic bliss
- Epidemics
- Gardening
- Ham radio
- Health and safety gone mad
- Illness
- Joshua
- Kit
- LabLit
- Media
- Music
- Nostalgia
- Obituaries
- Policy
- Politics
- Recruitment
- Research
- Science fiction
- science funding
- Science is Vital
- Science journalism
- Science talking
- Scientific method
- Scientific papers
- Scientific thinking
- Silliness
- Staring into the abyss
- Stereotypes
- Students
- Teaching
- The ageing process
- The profession of science
- Uncategorized
- Women in science
- Work/life balance
- Writing
Meta
Author Archives: Jennifer Rohn
In which an era ends
She was decent and hard-working. She seldom complained, even when she got herself into a jam. She witnessed my awakening as a writer, from tentative, cliché-prone beginner to confident, stripped-down wordsmith capable of earning money and book deals. She saw … Continue reading
Posted in LabLit, Nostalgia, Work/life balance, Writing
4 Comments
In which I’m published – in ‘Science Fiction by Scientists’
As the Queen of Lab Lit, a literary subgenre whose defining characteristic includes not being science fiction, people are often surprised to discover that I do actually like SF. But it’s true. I read little else when I was younger, … Continue reading
In which I am cloistered
I’ve had to do a lot of working from home these past two weeks, as our Athena SWAN submission reaches its final denouement. (Let’s pause to appreciate the image of “Athena SWAN” as a reassuringly corpulent opera singer with Viking … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, The profession of science
1 Comment
In which green means go
It’s often been said that witnessing your child grow up is akin to scientific experiment – an intense longitudinal observational study with no control group. As a fan of language in all of its nuances, it’s been fascinating watching Joshua … Continue reading
Posted in Domestic bliss, Scientific thinking, Work/life balance
Comments Off on In which green means go
In which the calm cowers before the storm
Can you hear it? Yes, that’s the sound of a distinct lack of undergraduates knocking around the place. Even the summer lab students have departed, off for a few weeks of R&R or debauchery before the grind kicks back in … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Students, Teaching, The profession of science
Comments Off on In which the calm cowers before the storm
In which I wave in your general direction
Has it really been a few months since my last post? Holidays are only partially to blame: that covers two weeks. Maybe three, if you count the frazzled week finishing up in the lab beforehand, or the frazzled week on … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Domestic bliss, Gardening, Research, The profession of science, Women in science, Work/life balance
Comments Off on In which I wave in your general direction
In which I snap
I’m not a neat freak or anything, at home or in the lab, but sometimes, enough is enough. Behold the new arrangement of our lab’s stash of fluorochrome-conjugated secondary antibodies. Is it not a thing of beauty? (A moment of … Continue reading
Posted in Research, Scientific thinking, Silliness
3 Comments
In which the old girl rides again
As you can see, my young apprentice, your experiments have failed. Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational second-hand confocal microscope! My love-affair with second-hand lab equipment continues unabated. Some time ago, our department scored a good … Continue reading
Posted in Kit, Research, The profession of science
7 Comments
In which work-life balance wobbles
As with most academics, evenings and weekends often provide the extra time I need to stay on top of my workload. I’d rather sacrifice some family time than get behind – because once you’re behind, the anxiety sets in, making … Continue reading
In which I feel a bit too old for this game sometimes
Age is a slippery thing. Most days I still feel like that tentative new PhD student, pulling 80-hour weeks at the University of Washington Health Sciences Center in Seattle. By the red glow of the safelight, I’d feed dusky rectangles … Continue reading
