Johannes Boltze
What is your current role and what does a typical week look like?
I am serving as a Professor of Neuroscience. The typical working week contains a well-balanced spectrum of activities including (but not restricted to) teaching and preparing to teach, working on committees and planning groups both on the School and University level, data analysis and thinking about research strategies, scientific collaboration and grant writing, and a bit of networking. The weekend is usually reserved for working on papers.
Which part of your role do you enjoy the most, and what are the biggest challenges?
The teaching is something I enjoy a lot as I did not have it in my previous role. What is a bit of a challenge are the many, many (and often redundant or too detailed) forms we have for everything.
Who would you say is your role model in your personal and/or professional life?
My role model in professional live is Paul Ehrlich, perfectly uniting the roles of a physician and researcher.
Personally, I look up to Ephraim Kishon due to his great sense of humour and his sharp perception of human behaviour. Moreover, he was able to use that humour in a disarming and uniting way while living in a world determined by conflicts most of his life.
Which skills help you most in being able to perform your role?
My double education helps me a lot as I enjoy the privilege of being trained to look at things with two eyes, a physician’s and a biologist’s ones.
How has your education or roles previous to joining Life Sciences, informed your interests, and why did you choose this career direction?
I was always fascinated in modern medicine and how it is applied, in particular for the treatment of brain diseases. Rather than applying it, I found that it is much more rewarding being a part of a community developing it. SLS with its interdisciplinary setup and a perfect balance between basic and applied research is the right place to be for that.
What is your favourite place on campus and why?
Tocil Wood is my favourite place on campus as it provides a perfect start and a perfect end of a working day walking through it. It is also the perfect place to sneak out for a short walk and a fresh breeze of air once thoughts become a bit locked… The IBRB will be the place to be when thoughts start flowing again…
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?
We have a very well developed culture of scientific discussions and, if required, debating. This is something that can be fostered even further. The collegial spirit in which this is done is a great plus and must be fostered. It cannot be taken for granted in a competitive world.
What are your main interests or passions, outside of work?
I like hiking or at least taking long walks, reading books and get a bit deeper into other fields of science such as astrophysics (at least as far as my poor math carries me into it).
Interview date February 2021