Beatriz Lagunas
What is your current role and what does a typical week look like?
I am a postdoctoral research fellow and a personal tutor for Y1 and Y2 students. I am also a member of the Athena Swan (EDIC) committee and I am part of the PACTs seminar organisation team. In a typical working week, I do some lab work, write papers (there is always one more to write!), supervise students in the lab, I run my tutorials and do some marking, I review or edit papers and I catch up with students, colleagues or my PI on the progress of our projects to plan further experiments. I typically produce the PACTs seminar on Wednesdays and have a scheduled lab meeting on Fridays.
Nationality: Spanish
Which part of your role do you enjoy the most, and what are the biggest challenges?
Personally, I honestly enjoy the human interaction with my colleagues (they are a good bunch!). Whether it is with my supervisor and mentor, my postdoc colleagues and friends, the students in the lab or the students in the tutorial groups. Professionally, I enjoy putting stories together either as a research paper story or as a teaching tutorial story. I like to take that step back and put things into perspective.
As the biggest challenges, I think getting money to do research is the biggest, but then it is to use both money and time efficiently to produce the most out of the least!
What is your favourite place on campus and why?
I have fond memories of my time in Westwood, I used to live there when I first joined Warwick and I remember the walk to and from Gibbet Hill being very useful –almost therapeutic- to transition to and from work.
Can you give an example of something that has made you feel part of the community while in Life Sciences, and what could be improved to enable this?
Undoubtedly, the family room in the Medical School. When I returned from my maternity leave in December 2016, I could use it to express milk while I was having lunch! It did help me a lot with the transition back to work. The fact that this room was present and ready to be used when I came back to work made my transition a lot easier and it made me feel like –even as a new mum that had just returned to work- I belonged here! I think it would have been good to have an SLS/MedSchool group of new parents as a forum to discuss personal and work-related issues, maybe this is something the Athena Swan committee could work on!
What are your main interests or passions, outside of work?
I enjoy spending time with my kid, to go outdoors for a hike, to jump in trampoline parks and to relax at home. I also like spending time with my friends, I started running April last year and I love travelling, reading, listening to music and singing.
Interview date February 2021