Position Details:

 

It is the duty of the department head to help individuals or groups to formulate their idea for a research proposition by helping them prepare their presentation to be given to the society, all done within the department meeting which the head will chair and organize. It is also the department heads responsibility to assist any members of his/her department to prepare any presentation which that member wishes to give to the society. The department head is the one who brings forward the research proposals to the Head of Research who in turn informs the secretary of all research applications.

 

Being a department head requires a great deal of planning in advance, creativity and ability to communicate effectively. I was attracted to this position because I felt that I have the passion to bring my ideas for events to life and would like to build a community of biologists united by their interests. My personal strategy is not to ‘lead’ meetings, because I realise that my knowledge will always be insufficient, but rather to facilitate them by arranging discussions, interactive events, promoting peer support sessions and involvement in projects. Of course it feels great when many people turn up at our meetings, but to me the real success of EUYSRA is when people gather in small study groups in their own time to discuss projects or prepare presentations – it means that we have indeed brought a sense of community in the society.

 

Personal Details:

I graduated from the National Secondary School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria in May 2014 and then moved in Edinburgh for my undergraduate degree attracted by the good academic reputation of the University.

 

In my high school years I was extremely attracted to science, especially biology and chemistry, and loved using my free time to make herbaria, learn more about aquatic ecosystems by caring for my African cichlids and think of various simple science experiments that me and my friends could do.

 

EUYSRA was the perfect society for me to join as it was exactly what I have dreamt for, giving me the freedom to do whatever experiments I like, gain experience and learn from my mistakes. My first-year EUYSRA project investigated whether inoculation of soybean plants with a commercial mixture of mycorrhizal fungi would confer better growth in saline soils. Only through doing this project I got a realistic idea of how complex doing any kind of research is. I would definitely do a project this year as well because despite the difficulties I felt that biology is even more awesome than I previously thought!