Q&As in 2025

Francesco Mattia Rossi is an Associate Professor in the Laboratorio de Neurociencias at the Facultad de Ciencias - Universidad de la República in Montevideo (Uruguay), investigating the mechanisms of neuronal plasticity in the visual cortex. In addition to his faculty role, Dr. Rossi chairs the Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neuroscience Societies. In this Q&A, he discusses his career journey and his engagement in promoting (neuro)science research and education in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ingrid Eftedal is a senior scientist at Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norway, and a leading expert in baromedicine. In this Q&A, we talk about what started her career and the challenges of conducting niche research.

In this interview, marine biologist Jasmin Graham shares about her experience building grassroots change in science, navigating exclusionary spaces and what it means to foster belonging in the ocean sciences.

Audrey Dussutour is a Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (Toulouse, France), specializing in the adaptive behaviors of ants and slime molds. She has authored over 70 scientific papers and four award-winning science books. Dr. Dussutour has led two influential citizen science projects: “Raise Your Blob”, engaging 350,000 students, and “Behind the Blob”, mobilizing 15,000 volunteers to study climate change impact on slime molds. Her science communication efforts have been recognized with the National Order of Merit and the first CNRS Medal for scientific outreach. In this Q&A, she discusses the fascinating world of social insects and slime molds, the challenges of pursuing basic research outside mainstream funding priorities, and the importance of science education.

In this Q&A, Christopher Smith, Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, discusses his journey from medical illustration to evolutionary anatomy, emphasizing how artistic skills have shaped his scientific research and how visual representation can drive scientific discovery.

Professor Faraz Mardakheh began his research quest as an undergraduate at the University of Birmingham, after which he completed his PhD on receptor tyrosine kinase signalling in cancer. His journey continued at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, where he became a postdoctoral fellow investigating signalling mechanisms behind cancer invasion and metastasis. An unexpected turn of events, as often happens in research, awakened a passion for RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) which guides his research interests to date. Last year, Professor Mardakheh’s career experienced another exciting shift as he relocated his lab from the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, to the University of Oxford. Leveraging their expertise in cutting-edge Mass Spectrometry-based proteomics complemented by RNA-sequencing, bioinformatics and a variety of cell-based and biochemical techniques, the Mardakheh lab aims to explore the mysterious world of RBPs and, more specifically, their implications in malignant transformation.