What is your name?
Dana Gawlitzek
Where are you from?
San Francisco, USA
To which class do you belong?
MSc Translational Neuroscience 2024/25
Where and what did you study before joining Imperial College London?
I studied neuroscience (BS) at American University in Washington, DC
How did you find your Master’s experience at the College?
I found the Master’s program to be both challenging and highly rewarding. The skills I developed and the research techniques I was exposed to, particularly in neuroimaging and neurostimulation, proved invaluable. The MSc program ultimately shaped me into a more well-rounded and capable scientist
Which research project did you work on?
My project was titled “Investigating the role of anxiety on vestibular control of balance during step initiation” and I was supervised by Dr. Toby J. Ellmers
Where are you now?
I am now joining the lab of Professor Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, as a research assistant and will be transitioning to a PhD position after 6 months
What are you working on?
I will be working on a project investigating the theory of mind development in children using fMRI
What is the most important lesson you learnt as a Master’s student?
The most important lesson I learned during my Master’s was the value of adaptability in research. Initially, I felt nervous about the project I was assigned, as it focused on a topic I knew little about and involved techniques with which I had no experience. However, as I engaged with the work, I realised it offered opportunities to develop new skills and perspectives that I hadn’t anticipated. In the end, the project proved to be both highly rewarding and a valuable learning experience, and I emerged with a much broader skill set than I had anticipated. This taught me that being open-minded and flexible can often lead to growth in ways I couldn’t have predicted
How did the Master’s programme help you get to where you are now?
The skills and experience I gained through my independent research project were instrumental in securing my current research position and demonstrating that I had completed a research project from start to finish, from experimental design to data analysis and write-up, which highlighted both my technical abilities and research independence, which proved to be a valuable and compelling aspect of my applications