Undergraduate university student in biomedical science. Loves neurodiversity, autism, disability rights and inclusion. Studying biology with special interests in DNA, genes, protein regulation and expression, cancer and autoimmune diseases, cell signalling.
Hobbies: musicals, animals and pets (especially service dog access rights and biodetection dogs screening for disease)
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I’m personally very grateful to Leaf and other opportunities. I’d say the most useful aspects for me came from: A low barrier to entry e.g. online courses funnelling into residential, easily accessible resources for first impressions, no cost
A culture of disagreement, the ability to critically evaluate how we perceived a source or data and what WE thought of it, despite being very young and inexperienced compared to facilitators
Ongoing mentorship which specifically helped me find work experience, volunteering opportunities related to biorisk and biosafety such as lab projects, positions in teams, research ideas
Network of peers and faciliators and guests who can star on podcasts, proofread articles or essays or papers on biorisk or recommend competitions, olympiad etc
And less of a priority but useful:
University degree interview and subject specific personal statement help (especially since i had a large pivot that needed rewriting my application)
Fun community e.g. ethical and philosophical debates, just people my age who enjoy learning and are curious as to how to help others
Events that led to positive feelings e.g. at the residential we did BSL sessions, had student groups, mental health sessions, book clubs, debates, escape rooms etc, which is not EA specific or academic but allowed us to break the barriers to later have more open and honest conversations, and rather than a one off, I made some very strong connections who I’m in contact with over 12 months later either through daily messages with peers I met or weekly/monthly calls/emails for mentorship or help… so it’s a 2 way street that was strengthened by being in one place at the same time and encouraged to mingle...
How useful is pre university student collations of research papers in biorisk?
I’ve been working on some papers (for fun) collating research in the biosafety field, but obviously have no experience/degrees and it is secondary analysis- how useful would posting these ‘rough’ papers be helpful. They mainly focus on antibiotic resistance, biosafety and pandemic risk from gain of function research?