• Question: How long have you guys been preparing for your current project? And when are you planning to carry it out?

    Asked by wesley1 to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi Wesley1!

      I’ve been researching AND carrying out my project for two and a half years now! I’m due to finish after three years (I have a lot of work left to do but hopefully I’ll finish in time!). 🙂

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi Wesley1, I have several projects running at the moment. Some are older than others. My soil clean up project has been running since 2005, though we have gone through many stages of the project. The three pieces that I am working on now are between a few months and a year and a half old. That’s my oldest project. Some of my others are much newer. I do a lot of work with other scientists so each of us has our part to do. Normally it takes me a while to take an idea and translate it into a project. It’s a bit like incubating — the idea needs time to hatch.

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I actually have loads of projects ongoing at the moment. There are some more details on my research webpage: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ecodling/EACresearch.htm

      I am looking at various ways to model animal movement behaviour – both individual and in groups, and for various animals (coral reef fish, plankton, human crowds, and others).

      I am also doing a number of projects related to management of fisheries. Some of this work is used by the EU fisheries managers to make decisions about how many fish to catch each year, so this is quite useful and important work!

      I don’t do all this myself though – I have about 7-8 other scientists who I work with and I also supervise 6 PhD students who are all working on their own projects as well.

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I am also carrying out several projects at the same time. I have started planning my PhD about three years ago now. Some projects I have to plan as I go (field research) and this one I will finish this autumn. One experiment I am running took me about half a year in the planning, and it will last even past the time I finish in about a year. Another experiment I planned in a matter of weeks, and it’s only taking me about two months to carry it out, although that one I can just work on occasionally.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      I am in the second year of my PhD so I have only done 2 years of work and will finish next year. But hopefully I can continue with similar research somewhere else!

      Interesting because I have friends doing astro physics and apparently they turn up before their PhD with all the data they need so they just use the time to write about it and work on it.. maybe some equations and things like that!

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