Question: what made you want to be a scientist and how old were you when you decided to be a scientist

Hao Shi answered on 7 Nov 2022:

Excellent question and I used to think about it a lot when I was your age, even though I didn’t have an answer.

To be honest, when I started my master’s career (it takes 3 years in China), I had no idea what I would do after graduation, becoming a scientist was just one of the options. But when I actually started to work in the laboratory, to explore something unknown to myself, I felt very excited, and more importantly, I did a good job, which gave me confidence and let me know that I am suitable for scientific research work.

After graduating with a master’s degree, I joined a research team as a research assistant, but my usual job was not that different from that of a scientist, so I thought why don’t I start my own PhD project, doing research on problems that interest me. At the same time, something else happened that was very painful for me, my grandfather developed Alzheimer’s disease. I think I should do something about diseases of old age like Alzheimer’s. I was 27 when I made up my mind.