Edheads:
Welcome to STEM Stars Powered by edheads.org—where you get an inside look at careers in science, tech, engineering and math. Today’s guest is microbiologist, Dr. Tiffany Claeys.
Dr. Tiffany Claeys:
My name is Dr. Tiffany Claeys and I’m a microbiologist. At my job, I study microorganisms like bacteria and viruses and how they interact with the hosts that they infect. I got into science because I wanted to help people, but I didn’t want to necessarily be a doctor and helping people at the bedside. So I figured that the best way to use my brain would be to actually do the studying in the lab and doing the research. I had to overcome a lot of obstacles when I was younger.
I was really interested in science, but growing up I didn’t have a lot of money and so I didn’t have as many opportunities to actually study in a laboratory the way that I wanted to. So I did a lot of studying on my own. I read a lot of books. I was at the library all the time and I used my resources.
My teachers were really great and I always asked for more—more information and more questions all the time. And y’know, my teachers were really helpful. I actually watched a lot of educational TV shows. So a lot of Bill Nye the Science Guy was the big guy when I was when I was a kid, but also YouTube. I still watch a ton of YouTube videos and I can learn a ton that way.
Anybody can a ton just watching videos and watching TV. I think the coolest thing about my job is getting to look at things under a microscope that you can’t see by just looking at them. So being able to see a whole new world that is something that is almost hidden from us is just really cool. And being able to actually ask questions that nobody knows the answer to and and make discoveries every day.
That’s my actual job. And it’s just a really cool feeling to find out things that are previously unknown. Everybody makes a lot of mistakes in the lab. So, for instance, there’s a lot of times where I will accidentally add the wrong the wrong liquid into my cells. And so if I’m growing cells in a plate, they need very specific things to grow.
And if you put the wrong things in there, they all… die. And so I’ve done this so many times where I’ve put the wrong thing on my cells and I’m a trained professional. This is something I should know how to do, but sometimes I still add water which will explode all of your cells. And sometimes your boss isn’t happy with you when you do that
but you recover and you you just try again and you do it better the next time. But yeah, you’re you’re always going to have things that don’t go right in science, especially when you’re working with living things because they’re very particular about what they do and don’t like. So every little mistake is just another way to learn and get better for the next time.
So if you want to go into microbiology or any of the biological sciences, a good place to start would be just take as many science classes as you can. Even if it’s not biology. All science is important just to be able to think like a scientist at all. It all ties together. So other than that, read a lot.
Start watching a bunch of YouTube videos, watch a lot of TV shows and documentaries and see which things actually really excite you and then focus in on that. There’s, you know, college classes. You can you can focus in even more. And then if if your goal is to become a doctor or get a masters, then you’re going to focus down until you reach that one thing that is a teeny, tiny little passion of yours that isn’t necessarily a big picture thing. So you’re just you just get to know everything as much as you can and figure out what your passion is.
