According to the survey, 87% of Americans are more likely to encourage kids to pursue a career in science, and yet 44% said are less likely to say they are a science or math person. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. The best Pinoy Science news and features coming your way. It is the only Filipino-made structural health monitoring system in the market. So she spun the tubes of cultured yeast in a centrifuge, which forced the liquid carrying DNA molecules to the top of the tube, drew off some of that liquid, and ran it through the spectrophotometer. Biomedical engineer and technology. Growing up, I had a chemistry set and telescope (later building my own), and because of these, read a lot about chemistry and astronomy. Proficient in Visual Studios Code, Microsoft . National Academy of Science and Technology Philippines. The summer program expanded her scientific interests to bioengineering, she said. About. Dr. Cruz has had a prolific career in research, having published over 130 academic papers. I just knew what I wanted to do, and I was so excited about it.. In second grade, I read a scientific explanation of something I experienced every day. Add your comment to start the conversation. Dr. Santos was also one of the founding members of the Philippine Academy of Sciences and Humanities, under what was then called the National Science Development Board. She completed her masters degree in 1966 and her Ph.D. in 1968. These results may not be perfect but they are better than ad hoc decisions, she said. If you cant see it, you cant be it. Engineering and computer science two of the most lucrative STEM fields remain heavily male dominated. Biotechnologist, woman, age 54, Scientists reflections often touched on multiple themes; some emphasized their curiosity about the world and others emphasized the role of people in their lives who fostered their interests. She went online and ordered a chemical she could use to watch transport into a cell: a fluorescent dye that binds to a cells DNA. Here's a list of 10 career ideas to consider. Postdoctoral Researcher in Palaeobiology, University of New England. I hadnt considered issues of identity or community in these still-novel digital settings. He took care of fish ponds that provided steady supplies of milkfish to the local and neighboring markets. Computer and software engineering. They helped me apply to colleges and tried to help me find internships or summer programs to keep me involved in science, Rivera said. This piqued my interest; Facebook was still new, having opened to the public just two years prior. Through our science-based crop improvement research, we hope to contribute to addressing the challenges of food and nutrition security, sustainability and resilience to climate change, Hautea shared. Considering an estimated 2.4 million jobs may remain unfulfilled due to the skills gap, the jobs exist, the skills may not bethere yet, but they are attainable. 10 science jobs. Having spent a lot of time near the coral reefs and shallow waters, it is evident how the beauty of the sea captured the heart of Angel. Geology and petroleum technology. The word career is often used to refer to a profession, occupation, trade or vocation. The procedure was something we came up with by just using a hot plate and heating up water in a beaker with a thermometer and holding the tubes slightly in the water, she said. She founded the Rural Livelihood Incubator in Bataan, an initiative that supports the education of poor rural communities in science and technology. Archaeologist. 1901), Lexpertise universitaire, lexigence journalistique. Porfirio Alcala, Angels father, was a fish farmer. One memory that stands out in particular is of a canoe trip to the boundary waters in northern Minnesota when I was about 12, where I saw carnivorous plants in the wild for the first time beautiful, huge, floating mats of pitcher plants . See Answer. Meanwhile, Hautea has over 40 years of experience working in areas of plant genetics, breeding, and plant molecular biology and biotechnology. They also went on numerous field trips, collecting data for their research and publications. Shortly after graduating, Alcala became a teacher in Silliman Universitys Biology Department. I loved poring over the Harry Messel textbooks as a 10- or 11-year-old. My main advice is to pursue your interest and to know what you are good at. That program was FAST Future Advancers of Science and Technology. Galvin and Liu are sharing their training materials and guidance with student organizations within Stanford. Demonstrate your confidence. Eduardo Quisumbing (November 24, 1895-August 23, 1986) was a Filipino botanist and a noted expert in the medicinal plants of the Philippines. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax With her help, we made YouTube videos advertising the program and sent student representatives trained by her to each science classroom to answer students questions about the program., I just remember feeling like a different, more mature version of myself came out of doing the program my senior year., Brianna River, who joined the FAST program while she was a student at Andrew Hill High School in San Jose, California. A total of seven Conus venom-based therapeutic products for pain, epilepsy and myocardial infarction reached Phase 1 and preclinical trials on non-human subjects in 2006. Tecson-Mendoza, E. (2017) Biosketches: Filipino Trailblazers in Science and Technology. We are committed to shining a spotlight on the scientists who often work behind the scenes to bring much needed innovations like new vaccines to the world.. In this new twist on FAST, the students who are native Spanish speakers can feel empowered while still learning to navigate our English-speaking science community.. Reproduced courtesy of the University of Sydney, Hit hard by the pandemic, researchers expect its impacts to linger for years, There are 10 catastrophic threats facing humans right now, and coronavirus is only one of them. Similarly, 47% said theyre less likely to pursue a science career if they could go back in time. By creating models, we can have more informed decisions with how we can solve problems. Many of these scientists reported an interest and curiosity in science or the natural world starting in early childhood. WHAT MADE THEM PURSUE A CAREER IN SCIENCE? But, buoyed by a Saturday science program developed and run by Stanford graduate student volunteers, she not only aced her class, but also found a passion for science which she now embraces as a biomedical engineering major in her first year of college. Even if you dont have a hard core STEM degree, you can be part of a team that is engrossed in a STEM initiative. Already have Rappler+? Because of his work, conservation programs in the Philippines are now well established. I didnt know that most of the time in science, research is like 99% failure, Rivera said, And now, I think thats kind of what makes science so interesting for me. Professor of Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University. From an early age were conditioned to make these associations that science is for boys or for white males and that these careers are kind of off limits for certain people. Men and women in this group of working Ph.D. scientists mentioned similar kinds of influences on their career choice. Died : October 25, 1988. And Ill never forget the photo of a dissected rat. lire aussi : Armed with her decorated educational background, Dr. Cruz accepted the position of Assistant Professor at the UP College of Medicine in 1970. Chemist. Meanwhile, Aviso shared that her parents had a huge influence on her interest in mathematics and science. His mother was Crescenciana Chua, and his father was Porfirio Alcala. Rivera said she got the phone call notifying her that shed been accepted into the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program while she was sipping strawberry bubble tea with a friend one afternoon late in her junior year. But after watching all the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and History Channel documentaries I could possibly get my hands on, my mind was constantly in awe of such questions. They caused muscular paralysis, sleepiness or drowsiness, involuntary motion, and more. Rivera was motivated by the impact that science and engineering could have on peoples lives both for those who practice it and those who benefit from its advances, Galvin said. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. This approach allows for the management of all my clients' affairs under one roof. But she said FAST helped her stay on track academically, while coaching from mentors and the scientific process itself both taught her resilience. Jess is on her way to getting her license in engineering. You may opt-out by. Her daughter asked why measurements matter. Liu, current FAST president, said the point when students start to really understand the scientific process and are confident in their own ideas is one is of the most satisfying moments of being a mentor. Write your answers on the table provided. His early years in school it was clear that Angel had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to excel. To be recognized for [Asian Scientist 100] this year is elating, its surprising, and at the same time, its actually humbling, Saludes told Rappler in an interview. With more than thirty years of experience as a marine biologist, he contributed to his countrys marine development and ecology concerns. These scientists are also famous abroad in different science disciplines: agriculture, mathematics, physics, medicine marine science, chemistry, engineering and biology. There are 10 catastrophic threats facing humans right now, and coronavirus is only one of them. This is juxtaposed with a strong demand and continued growth in a field that fuels innovationandoffers job security. It was there that she began working with other biochemists in exploring the biochemical properties of a marine predator. Primary duties: Market research analysts complete data collection, research and analysis tasks. There was no going back. I was many things: harried lecturer, canny grant-seeker, cynical academic, chameleon mother and wife of shire president. She served as an assistant professor in the UP College of Medicines Department of Biochemistry, becoming the department chairperson from 1970 to 1986. In doing so, my father had introduced me to the record of organisms that were no longer alive and furthermore, that people who studied these animals are called palaeontologists. Indeed, if theres anything the pandemic has made clear, its that the importance of scientific research cant be understated in todays world. 5 Ways To Grow Your Personal Brand As A Content Creator, Why We Need To Make Every Day Employee Appreciation Day, In A Competitive Job Market, Heres How To Win The Interview, 5 Tips To Recession-Proof Your Career And Bullet-Proof Your Security, How Leaders At Ultragenyx Balance The Duality Of Action And Connection, Companies Outside Of Big Tech Are Winning Top Talent. All a scientist or engineer needs is curiosity or a drive to make things better, mentorship or some system of accountability, and space to do the work, or sometimes just the internet.. Julie Greicius is the senior director of external communications in the Office of Communications. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects workforce shortfalls for many science fields, though the projected needs differ across the life, physical and natural sciences. The student body also included 36% Asian American kids, many of whom were immigrants or the children of immigrants from Vietnam. Saludes added that like any other scientist, he believes that recognitions such as this are just icing on the cake, and scientists do what they do because of passion and a determination to serve the people. Dr. Lourdes J. Cruz was born on May 19, 1942. In the intervening years, he had served as the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development or PCARMD as an executive director. Examine what made them pursue a career in science. I just remember feeling like a different, more mature version of myself came out of doing the program my senior year, Rivera said. Jess has also been working with an education project that capacitates STEM learners with portable science activity kits. Personal Information. Gylie: I hope that the stories we share will create an interest in science among a new generation of young women and girls and inspire them to pursue education and careers in science. I was in the middle of a PhD, conducting interviews with Aboriginal people about their identity and involvement in the Aboriginal community. During this pandemic, science has proven that it is a great problem solver. Most scientists in the west are inspired by writing a book and making a living from the royalties and working for a prestigious resesrch university. But discovering her passion for science and having women mentors to inspire and support her has made it easier for her to persevere. Dr. Cruz has had a prolific career in research, having published over 130 academic papers. We need safe opportunities to fail and be celebrated for trying really hard, Galvin said. She also said that coaching from FAST mentors helps students stick with science after high school, including managing the college application process, getting financial aid for college, and introducing them to ethics and coding. In 1948 Alcala began an undergraduate degree in biological studies at the private Silliman University, in Dumaguete in the adjoining Negros Oriental province. How would she measure diffusion rates? Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World, 6 facts about Americas STEM workforce and those training for it, STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Its Pi Day and theres some good news for math teachers, Half of Americans think young people dont pursue STEM because it is too hard, Gender Discrimination in Science Is Especially Common, 60% of Americans Would Be Uncomfortable With Provider Relying on AI in Their Own Health Care, Gender pay gap in U.S. hasnt changed much in two decades. Heres How They Do It, 6 Reasons Why Your Job Search Efforts Dont Land You A Job. Worksheet 5 GEC 103 Science Technology Society Name: Mary Nicole Paclibar Course and Year: BSN1 A GEC 103 Week 5 Activity and Home study A. b. I felt like I had no direction on where to go, Rivera said. Once water, yeast and sugar were doubled, she got excited. Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice-Chancellors Fellow, La Trobe University. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Louis Agassiz | Maria Gaetana Agnesi | Al-BattaniAbu Nasr Al-Farabi | Alhazen | Jim Al-Khalili | Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi | Mihailo Petrovic Alas | Angel Alcala | Salim Ali | Luis Alvarez | Andre Marie Ampre | Anaximander | Carl Anderson | Mary Anning | Virginia Apgar | Archimedes | Agnes Arber | Aristarchus | Aristotle | Svante Arrhenius | Oswald Avery | Amedeo Avogadro | Avicenna, Charles Babbage | Francis Bacon | Alexander Bain | John Logie Baird | Joseph Banks | Ramon Barba | John Bardeen | Charles Barkla | Ibn Battuta | William Bayliss | George Beadle | Arnold Orville Beckman | Henri Becquerel | Emil Adolf Behring | Alexander Graham Bell | Emile Berliner | Claude Bernard | Timothy John Berners-Lee | Daniel Bernoulli | Jacob Berzelius | Henry Bessemer | Hans Bethe | Homi Jehangir Bhabha | Alfred Binet | Clarence Birdseye | Kristian Birkeland | James Black | Elizabeth Blackwell | Alfred Blalock | Katharine Burr Blodgett | Franz Boas | David Bohm | Aage Bohr | Niels Bohr | Ludwig Boltzmann | Max Born | Carl Bosch | Robert Bosch | Jagadish Chandra Bose | Satyendra Nath Bose | Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe | Robert Boyle | Lawrence Bragg | Tycho Brahe | Brahmagupta | Hennig Brand | Georg Brandt | Wernher Von Braun | J Harlen Bretz | Louis de Broglie | Alexander Brongniart | Robert Brown | Michael E. Brown | Lester R. Brown | Eduard Buchner | Linda Buck | William Buckland | Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon | Robert Bunsen | Luther Burbank | Jocelyn Bell Burnell | Macfarlane Burnet | Thomas Burnet, Benjamin Cabrera | Santiago Ramon y Cajal | Rachel Carson | George Washington Carver | Henry Cavendish | Anders Celsius | James Chadwick | Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | Erwin Chargaff | Noam Chomsky | Steven Chu | Leland Clark | John Cockcroft | Arthur Compton | Nicolaus Copernicus | Gerty Theresa Cori | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb | Jacques Cousteau | Brian Cox | Francis Crick | James Croll | Nicholas Culpeper | Marie Curie | Pierre Curie | Georges Cuvier | Adalbert Czerny, Gottlieb Daimler | John Dalton | James Dwight Dana | Charles Darwin | Humphry Davy | Peter Debye | Max Delbruck | Jean Andre Deluc | Democritus | Ren Descartes | Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel | Diophantus | Paul Dirac | Prokop Divis | Theodosius Dobzhansky | Frank Drake | K. Eric Drexler, John Eccles | Arthur Eddington | Thomas Edison | Paul Ehrlich | Albert Einstein | Gertrude Elion | Empedocles | Eratosthenes | Euclid | Eudoxus | Leonhard Euler, Michael Faraday | Pierre de Fermat | Enrico Fermi | Richard Feynman | Fibonacci Leonardo of Pisa | Emil Fischer | Ronald Fisher | Alexander Fleming | John Ambrose Fleming | Howard Florey | Henry Ford | Lee De Forest | Dian Fossey | Leon Foucault | Benjamin Franklin | Rosalind Franklin | Sigmund Freud | Elizebeth Smith Friedman, Galen | Galileo Galilei | Francis Galton | Luigi Galvani | George Gamow | Martin Gardner | Carl Friedrich Gauss | Murray Gell-Mann | Sophie Germain | Willard Gibbs | William Gilbert | Sheldon Lee Glashow | Robert Goddard | Maria Goeppert-Mayer | Thomas Gold | Jane Goodall | Stephen Jay Gould | Otto von Guericke, Fritz Haber | Ernst Haeckel | Otto Hahn | Albrecht von Haller | Edmund Halley | Alister Hardy | Thomas Harriot | William Harvey | Stephen Hawking | Otto Haxel | Werner Heisenberg | Hermann von Helmholtz | Jan Baptist von Helmont | Joseph Henry | Caroline Herschel | John Herschel | William Herschel | Gustav Ludwig Hertz | Heinrich Hertz | Karl F. Herzfeld | George de Hevesy | Antony Hewish | David Hilbert | Maurice Hilleman | Hipparchus | Hippocrates | Shintaro Hirase | Dorothy Hodgkin | Robert Hooke | Frederick Gowland Hopkins | William Hopkins | Grace Murray Hopper | Frank Hornby | Jack Horner | Bernardo Houssay | Fred Hoyle | Edwin Hubble | Alexander von Humboldt | Zora Neale Hurston | James Hutton | Christiaan Huygens | Hypatia, Ernesto Illy | Jan Ingenhousz | Ernst Ising | Keisuke Ito, Mae Carol Jemison | Edward Jenner | J. Hans D. Jensen | Irene Joliot-Curie | James Prescott Joule | Percy Lavon Julian, Michio Kaku | Heike Kamerlingh Onnes | Pyotr Kapitsa | Friedrich August Kekul | Frances Kelsey | Pearl Kendrick | Johannes Kepler | Abdul Qadeer Khan | Omar Khayyam | Alfred Kinsey | Gustav Kirchoff | Martin Klaproth | Robert Koch | Emil Kraepelin | Thomas Kuhn | Stephanie Kwolek, Joseph-Louis Lagrange | Jean-Baptiste Lamarck | Hedy Lamarr | Edwin Herbert Land | Karl Landsteiner | Pierre-Simon Laplace | Max von Laue | Antoine Lavoisier | Ernest Lawrence | Henrietta Leavitt | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek | Inge Lehmann | Gottfried Leibniz | Georges Lematre | Leonardo da Vinci | Niccolo Leoniceno | Aldo Leopold | Rita Levi-Montalcini | Claude Levi-Strauss | Willard Frank Libby | Justus von Liebig | Carolus Linnaeus | Joseph Lister | John Locke | Hendrik Antoon Lorentz | Konrad Lorenz | Ada Lovelace | Percival Lowell | Lucretius | Charles Lyell | Trofim Lysenko, Ernst Mach | Marcello Malpighi | Jane Marcet | Guglielmo Marconi | Lynn Margulis | Barry Marshall | Polly Matzinger | Matthew Maury | James Clerk Maxwell | Ernst Mayr | Barbara McClintock | Lise Meitner | Gregor Mendel | Dmitri Mendeleev | Franz Mesmer | Antonio Meucci | John Michell | Albert Abraham Michelson | Thomas Midgeley Jr. | Milutin Milankovic | Maria Mitchell | Mario Molina | Thomas Hunt Morgan | Samuel Morse | Henry Moseley, Ukichiro Nakaya | John Napier | Giulio Natta | John Needham | John von Neumann | Thomas Newcomen | Isaac Newton | Charles Nicolle | Florence Nightingale | Tim Noakes | Alfred Nobel | Emmy Noether | Christiane Nusslein-Volhard | Bill Nye, Hans Christian Oersted | Georg Ohm | J. Robert Oppenheimer | Wilhelm Ostwald | William Oughtred, Blaise Pascal | Louis Pasteur | Wolfgang Ernst Pauli | Linus Pauling | Randy Pausch | Ivan Pavlov | Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin | Wilder Penfield | Marguerite Perey | William Perkin | John Philoponus | Jean Piaget | Philippe Pinel | Max Planck | Pliny the Elder | Henri Poincar | Karl Popper | Beatrix Potter | Joseph Priestley | Proclus | Claudius Ptolemy | Pythagoras, Adolphe Quetelet | Harriet Quimby | Thabit ibn Qurra, C. V. Raman | Srinivasa Ramanujan | William Ramsay | John Ray | Prafulla Chandra Ray | Francesco Redi | Sally Ride | Bernhard Riemann | Wilhelm Rntgen | Hermann Rorschach | Ronald Ross | Ibn Rushd | Ernest Rutherford, Carl Sagan | Abdus Salam | Jonas Salk | Frederick Sanger | Alberto Santos-Dumont | Walter Schottky | Erwin Schrdinger | Theodor Schwann | Glenn Seaborg | Hans Selye | Charles Sherrington | Gene Shoemaker | Ernst Werner von Siemens | George Gaylord Simpson | B. F. Skinner | William Smith | Frederick Soddy | Mary Somerville | Arnold Sommerfeld | Hermann Staudinger | Nicolas Steno | Nettie Stevens | William John Swainson | Leo Szilard, Niccolo Tartaglia | Edward Teller | Nikola Tesla | Thales of Miletus | Theon of Alexandria | Benjamin Thompson | J. J. Thomson | William Thomson | Henry David Thoreau | Kip S. Thorne | Clyde Tombaugh | Susumu Tonegawa | Evangelista Torricelli | Charles Townes | Youyou Tu | Alan Turing | Neil deGrasse Tyson, Craig Venter | Vladimir Vernadsky | Andreas Vesalius | Rudolf Virchow | Artturi Virtanen | Alessandro Volta, Selman Waksman | George Wald | Alfred Russel Wallace | John Wallis | Ernest Walton | James Watson | James Watt | Alfred Wegener | John Archibald Wheeler | Maurice Wilkins | Thomas Willis | E. O. Wilson | Sven Wingqvist | Sergei Winogradsky | Carl Woese | Friedrich Whler | Wilbur and Orville Wright | Wilhelm Wundt, Famous Scientists - Privacy - Contact - About - Content & Imagery 2023, : Color change allows harm-free health check of living cells, : Shunned after he discovered that continents move, : The dog whisperer who rewrote our immune systems rules, : In the 1600s found that space is a vacuum, : Aquatic ape theory: our species evolved in water, : Became the worlds most famous codebreaker, : We live at the bottom of a tremendously heavy sea of air, : The first mathematical model of the universe, : Revolutionized drug design with the Beta-blocker, : Discovered our planets solid inner core, : Shattered a fundamental belief of physicists, : Unveiled the spectacular microscopic world, : The cult of numbers and the need for proof, : Discovered 8 new chemical elements by thinking, : Record breaking inventor of over 40 vaccines, : Won uniquely both the chemistry & physics Nobel Prizes, : Founded the bizarre science of quantum mechanics, : Proved Earths climate is regulated by its orbit, : The giant of chemistry who was executed, : The greatest of female mathematicians, she unlocked a secret of the universe, : Pioneer of brain surgery; mapped the brains functions, : Major discoveries in chimpanzee behavior, : 6th century anticipation of Galileo and Newton, : Youthful curiosity brought the color purple to all, : Atomic theory BC and a universe of diverse inhabited worlds, : Discovered how our bodies make millions of different antibodies, : Discovered that stars are almost entirely hydrogen and helium. I have hosted computer science booths for tech events from adolescence to this day, and especially love to encourage young girls and women to seek out opportunities in the computer science pathway. Environmental scientist. During her senior year, Rivera continued with FAST and served as an ambassador and leader for the program at Andrew Hill. As a student, she had remarkable teachers to train her, including National Scientist Dr. Clara Y. Lim-Sylianco (for her undergraduate thesis), National Scientist Dr. Bienvenido O. Juliano, and internationally acclaimed biochemist Dr. Clarence P. Berg at the University of Iowa. Then when I got to years 11 and 12 at school, the six-volume Harvard Project Physics sold me completely. The top 14 careers in science you can consider are: 1. crivez un article et rejoignez une communaut de plus de 160 500 universitaires et chercheurs de 4 573 institutions. A career could define what you do for a living and range from those that require extensive training and education to those you can perform with only a high school diploma and a willingness to learn. Our teacher mentioned that we might need extra guidance. Upgrade to Rappler+ for exclusive content and unlimited access. She was like, Oh I like this, but I dont like science. Even as a little girl, she identified science as something that was unattainable or perhaps her gender and this is fundamentally the issue. Its inspiring to me as a scientist when I get really discouraged about my own research and I see how persistent they are, Liu said. Additionally, Dr. Cruz has been the president of the Center for BioMolecular Science Foundation since 1994, a DOST-approved foundation that applies bioscience to protect forests, seas, and their surrounding communities.MF. The caretakers gave girls dolls and stuffed animals and treated them gingerly whereas the boys were given puzzles and building blocks that helped develop spatial reasoning. I guess regardless of being online or offline, being Indigenous can attract violent behaviour from settlers. I think we have to be super cognizant that we can start separating these implicit associations we make with people and careers.. National average salary: $51,295 per year. He also made contributions for mammals and birds. Today, the conotoxin peptides are important, extensively used biochemical probes. We started by talking about what we can use that we have available at our school that could mimic some sort of chemical going in and out of a cell, Rivera said. Roughly one-third (32%) of working Ph.D. scientists said a main motivator for their career path was a lifelong interest in science and desire for intellectual challenge, according to the 2014 survey . He was one of the founders of the National Academy of Science and Technology. He was born in 1929 and grew up in a coastal village in the Philippines. She wasnt excited about science, and she didnt feel like she belonged. Others (27%) remembered effective mentoring and encouragement from teachers whether in elementary school, graduate school or somewhere in between. Research on their contributions in the field of science. She was an amateur naturalist and taught us a lot about ecology and the natural world. Chemistry. Laboratory technician. This is. They evolved long before the dinosaurs, and had gone extinct just before the first of the giant vertebrates (animals that have a backbone). Alcala is currently Trustee of Silliman University and is also Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences. For this year, eight Filipino scientists were recognized as part of the much-coveted list. As we embark on a new year, hopefully with more progress on the COVID-19 front, we asked six authors of The Conversation to reflect on what first sparked their interest in science.