• Question: Why did David Attenborough inspire you to become a scientist?

    Asked by fionadeburca to Eoin on 23 Oct 2020.
    • Photo: Eoin Gillespie

      Eoin Gillespie answered on 23 Oct 2020:


      When I was younger I loved to watch David Attenborough’s documentaries on the TV. The way he would introduce animals or plants and then go into detail on their evolution and how this makes them special for their environment. From here I started to collect nature books and often found myself reading about all the different animals and what makes them unique, always wondering why or how different animals exist and what we do or don’t know about them. I also loved this sense of discovery and finding out about the unknown. When I went to secondary school I started to study science and always loved to study biology. Then when I was started college I first thought I was going to be a zoologist (studies animals) but over time my mind was change and I became a biochemist. But I have not moved away from studying plants and animals. Biochemists study what happens inside the cells of living things and that means all living things. So I will hopefully one day study the strange plants and animals I used to see on the TV and find out what it is in their cells that makes them unique, and maybe answer some of the questions that I had when David Attenborough introduced them to me years ago!!

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