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Asked by anon-259788 on 28 Sep 2020.
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Chris Bloomer answered on 28 Sep 2020:
Almost everyone is having to work from home at the moment. This is okay, because there’s lots of things we can do from home, logging in to the computers at work so that I can carry on my research. The biggest problem is that it means I don’t get to see each other very often! A lot of our work is done by talking to other scientists to learn new things, and this is more difficult as we can only see each other remotely.
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Allyson Lister answered on 29 Sep 2020:
I agree with Chris and what he has said about talking with other scientists. A big part of a scientist’s job is having conversations, both with the other scientists we work with regularly *and* with ones our work is not directly related to. Often the conversations that produce really interesting new ideas are the ones I have with other researchers that I may not see as often (for instance, if they are on a different floor of the building, or we meet at a scientific conference).
I work from home now, and I worked from home before the COVID-19 lockdown, so less has changed for me than for many of my workmates. However, as our entire team is working from home, there is a real feeling of togetherness / solidarity, as we are all working through these strange times together.
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Cheukyau (Jane) Luk answered on 29 Sep 2020:
Same as Chris and Allyson, I now work from home and am waiting for more instructions to get back to the laboratory. Since the lockdown, my daily tasks include more literature reading and reviewing as I learn from the papers published by other scientists previously. On the bright side, the quiet reading time at home enables me to understand more about what I am doing and link it to what everyone else is doing and have found on the topic of my research. Now I cannot wait to return to lab, where I carry out all my experiments and collect the data to answer my project questions!
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James Smallcombe answered on 29 Sep 2020:
For my kind of experiments (big-particle accelerators) I have to go abroad because we dont have any current labs with the right equipment in the UK. But that has been impossible this year because of travel restrictions, a lot of the labs I want to visit are slowly opening back up, but because of the constantly changing situation we might have to self-isolate for 2 weeks once we reach the lab and when we come back. And for an experiment that might only be 5 days that’s not practical.
So I’m only able to analyse new data and not start anything new. But on the plus side with everyone getting better at video calls I have been interacting with my international colleagues a lot more and organising talks from speakers that are far away we couldn’t have gotten to come and visit to give an in person talk. -
Gaby Mayorga Adame answered on 29 Sep 2020:
I was coming back from a conference in US, so I decided to visit my mom in Mexico, then flights got cancel and I was stuck there for 5 months!! But I was able to keep working just fine because I mainly do computer modelling these days.
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Pam Harrison answered on 30 Sep 2020:
Like others a lot of my work is now done at home. But I obviously don’t have a lab at home. So about once a week I go in to work so I can complete anything needed there. The building is a lot quieter now, your temperature is checked before you go in and we have to social distance, people can’t sit at the desk next to me anymore. On site we also have to wear a mask at all times whilst were working which is a little uncomfortable but at least we are keeping each other safe.
I miss my colleagues but we do still regularly talk through Microsoft teams so we still can support each other and work together. -
Sonia Rodriguez answered on 1 Oct 2020:
I’ve been working from home for the past six months. I’ve been analysing data on my computer and writing projects. We are now restarting some of the experiments, but we still need to take shifts and do only the essential work in the lab. All our lab meetings are now held via Zoom.
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Tim Knapp answered on 1 Oct 2020:
I’m actually in work but what I normally do has changed dramatically.
I have done one face to face practical lesson with a couple of students that are studying to be Biomedical Scientists in the whole time since all this started, and that was today in my Training Lab with new screens up.
Everything else has been via Zoom or Skype or Teams.
Because I’m spending so much time here on the computer I had to get new glasses just for looking at it for long periods.
I also helped out with the blood donation teams by doing triage (asking questions to donors who turn up to donate before letting them in the building to make sure they weren’t going to infect staff or others donation). -
Helen Playford answered on 8 Oct 2020:
Like most people I’ve had to work from home mostly since March. There are two parts to my work – a practical side and a computer-based side. I’ve really missed the practical side, but we are slowly starting to work on our machines again which is fantastic!
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Siti Syuhaida Mohamed Yunus answered on 16 Oct 2020:
It makes me work from home since March 2020 and also a lot of conferences and business travels been cancelled due to this pandemic.
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