• Question: How long do you spend in the lab each day?

    Asked by willandsasha35646 to Carys, Chris, Jeremy, Katherine, Simone on 17 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by mattkp, samandaashishlgs.
    • Photo: Carys Cook

      Carys Cook answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Lol – today I spent 6 hours non-stop, tomorrow I will spend around 10 hours in the lab! A looooong day! It varies from day to day though – I can go weeks without setting foot in the lab, and other times I spend hours everyday. It depends on what work I want to do – thats one great thing about being a scientist, as long as you get your work done you can do what you want, when you want! A dream job for me!

    • Photo: Katherine Jones

      Katherine Jones answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Probably most days I spend about 6 or 7 hours in the lab. We have our computers in the lab so we can check our email (or the sport scores!) in the lab. Mainly we come out of the lab for lunch, or for a cup of tea – we can’t eat in the lab because of the chemicals in there.

    • Photo: Jeremy Green

      Jeremy Green answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Before I had my own research group, I would be in lab for most of the day, and sometimes into the evening. After all, doing experiments in labs is what science is mostly what my kind of science is about. Once I got my own research group (I am head of a lab) I spent less and less time in lab and more time discussing results (mostly troubleshooting) with my team members, writing grant applications, reading other people’s science and teaching. So now I spend perhaps an hour a week in the lab, often helping someone fix a bit of equipment or showing them some technique.

    • Photo: Simone Bijvoet

      Simone Bijvoet answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Actually, being a child psychologist I am never in a real lab. 🙂 But I do spend a lot of time doing my experiments with children, which I think will be about 2 hours a day whenever I am running a study. I often go to nurseries for that or I ask parents to come over to the university with their child. In the afternoon then I will spend another 2 hours looking at all the video tapes I made during the experiment and writing down exactly what kind of things the children have been doing.

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