In today's episode, we interview Maria Balaet. Maria is a computational neuroscientist at Imperial College London (final PhD year).  We learn about how she has wanted to become a scientist from a very young age and how she achieved moving from Romania to the UK for her studies.Her research focuses on using large scale cognitive testing and machine learning methods for understanding how cognitive processes differ relative to the general population in people affected by neurological conditions or who are drug users. We learn about the methods she has used in her research, and how her methods were adjusted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Maria is also a mentor for In2Science UK, teaches and supervises students part of the Imperial College London Translational and Experimental Neuroscience Masters courses. We learn more about the PhD program at Imperial College and the tasks PhD candidates typically take on.Maria is very passionate about public engagement with science, having delivered over two dozen public lectures across the UK just in the past three months. She also worked as a scientist for the TV show the Family Brain Games. We learn about her experience working on the TV show and giving public lectures, and how this engagement has made her PhD experience richer.We also learn from Maria's experience as an academic mother, and how she has been balancing motherhood and her research during the pandemic.Finally, we learn about her best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries to work, the impact of COVID-19 on her research, and what a day in the life looks like for her.ReferencesFind Maria on TwitterMaria's profile  

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