Profile
Daniela Plana
My CV
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Education:
I graduated from school in 1999 in my home town Barquisimeto, in Venezuela. I did a gap year (2000) studying French at the University of Perpignan in France, before going to study Chemistry at the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas (Venezuela’s capital city). I graduated in 2006 and moved to the UK to do my PhD at the University of Manchester, finishing that in 2010.
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Qualifications:
I have a BSc in Chemistry (undergraduate/first degree) and a PhD in Physical Chemistry (also called a doctorate, as you become a “doctor”, it means I did extra studies/work after university in order to properly learn how to do research/investigate things).
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Work History:
I’ve mainly worked as research assistant, but I also worked as a teaching assistant while I was doing my PhD, helping students learn to do experiments in Chemistry labs. When I was younger, during some summers breaks, I worked at my grandad’s bookstore.
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Current Job:
I’m a Postdoctoral Research Assistant or “Postdoc”… this means I mainly do research and help students with their own research
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Read more
The thing about electrochemistry is that it can be used for many different things, we actually use it every day, as it is what makes batteries work, by producing electricity from the chemicals inside them…
When I first started learning about it, while doing my degree at uni, I used it to see if we could clean up contaminated water by using electricity (applying a potential) to oxidise the nasty stuff in the water (like dyes or things left over from pharmaceutical companies), transforming them to things that are not harmful.
During my PhD, I studied a technique called “electroless deposition”, which is used for many things like making small metal wires on electronic circuits like ones inside computers or phones. Although it is used a lot, people are not 100% sure how it actually works, so I tried to learn more about it by doing lots of experiments putting copper (a very common metal to use for wires and such, as it conduces electricity really well) onto different things and trying to make the process go faster/slower, making different shapes or patterns, etc.
Since I’ve been in Bristol, I’ve worked on several different thing, mainly trying to transform greenhouse gases (the nasty ones that cause global warming like methane or CO2) into useful things like fuels. Essentially, I bubble the gas into water, then apply a potential (or sometimes shine some light on it!) and see if I can transform them into things like methanol. Methanol can then be used as fuel in devices called “fuel cells”. I’ve also worked a little bit with fuel cells, which are bit of kit which take a fuel and produce energy/electricity. A lot of the work I do in the lab starts with making materials to “catalyse” or speed up these processes: whether we are trying to make the fuels from methane/CO2 or produce electricity, we want to do it well and fast!
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My Typical Day:
Not every day is the same, which makes it fun… sometimes I spend all day in the lab doing experiments, but other days I work in the office looking at results. Sometimes I have meetings with students and other scientists or help students with their research…
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I’d use it to set up experiments that can be taken to schools and fund the visits to show them off!
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
curious, stubborn, helpful
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Yeah… mainly for talking too much! I always had trouble being quiet in class ;-)
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I like all kinds of music… except maybe really heavy metal!
What's your favourite food?
Anything with chocolate!!!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
mmmm…. that’s a hard one… I’ve always wanted a superpower, like being able to teletransport myself. But If we are talking science, I’d like to have enough money to do any research I want, travel to work in different labs, with different people and win a Nobel Prize!
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