Profile

Hello, my name is Anna Steyer, originally I am from the North of Germany, from a small village close to Bremen. I started working at EMBL Heidelberg in May 2013. In my PhD project I work on making microscopes “smarter”, so that they can do a lot of the work on their own. The goal is to automate the workflow for high-throughput correlative light and electron microscopy applications.

Before joining EMBL, I studied Technical Biology in Stuttgart and finished my diploma working for 9 months at Yale University (USA). During my university studies I got hooked on to electron microscopy. Therefore I wanted to continue and learn more about the different techniques available. Since 2013 I have been working in the Schwab Team, where we are focused on technique development to combine light and electron microscopy for different fields of biology.

One of the amazing things about EMBL is the international, interdisciplinary working environment and the broad outreach program. As a member of the Science and Society Committee and as an EMBL School Ambassador it is my privilege and responsibility to make science more accessible and understandable for everyone. This is also a good opportunity to change the view on scientists being old, bearded nerds. Although it can be quite challenging to explain different research topics to non-scientists, it also helps me to reflect on what I am doing and how the scientific community is perceived by the broad public.

Diary 1

Anna Steyer’s School Ambassador Diary 1

In November 2015 I visited a high school in the North of Germany to talk to junior and senior high school students which are in an orientation phase to decide what they want to do after finishing school. Before the school visit I contacted my former English teacher, who is now the headmaster of this school. I was positively surprised how many students signed up – and actually showed up – since the participation was completely voluntarily. All of them stayed for my 45 minutes presentation and even for another 45 minutes of active discussion, although their teacher needed to leave earlier on this day.

I started my presentation by talking about how I got from finishing high school to working at EMBL. I then introduced EMBL, its core missions and scientific achievements. The students were very interested to hear about the various possibilities to do basic research outside of universities.

Afterwards I continued explaining what I am working on in my PhD. I showed them how to look for “the needle in a haystack” by using combined light and electron microscopy, and how we intend to make microscopes smarter and more independent. The students were very actively engaging in our dialogue and asked a lot of questions.

Many of the students were very eager to learn about life at university, how different it is compared to high school and how EMBL might differ from other scientific institutions. A couple of students stayed another 20 minutes to discuss their specific interests and questions they had about a career in science.

Although German is my native language, it can sometimes be challenging for me to explain my work, since I normally present my work in English. I think that these school visits are a great opportunity to excite the young future researchers and to show the students what is possible. It also helps me to step back and focus on the essential parts of my project and how I can explain it to a general audience in understandable terms. I am very glad I got the opportunity to have this experience and I am looking forward to my next visit – many thanks to the team of ELLS.

Diary 2

Anna Steyer’s School Ambassador Diary 2

In 2015 I got in contact with my former Latin and History teacher from high school. He asked me if I would like to present the job field of science at their annual job market, targeting 9th and10th graders. I happily accepted. In March 2016 my high school had invited mostly parents and alumni to present 20 different jobs to 300 students. The students had voted for the jobs they were most interested in beforehand and could decide on the day to talk to the different people.

My idea was to give the students some small practical insights into science and also explain to them what I had been doing between high school and my PhD, what EMBL is and what we do in my lab.
One of their favorite parts was the FoldScope, a foldable light microscope, with which you can even take pictures on your cell phone. They were able to compare a traditional light microscope and the FoldScope.
We also did some pipetting with different colors spelling out EMBL, which was captured by the local newspaper.

A tool regularly used in almost all labs nowadays is the Green fluorescent protein (GFP) and related fluorescent proteins to mark specific organelles or parts of cells or even whole animals. The concept of using these proteins in biotechnology was quite new for the high school students. Therefore I borrowed the “Black Box” (from ELLS) with separate white light and UV light sources to demonstrate fluorescence. I had some GFP in tubes and bananas that fluoresce to attract animals to ripe fruits.

To also show some new technology, I set up a live connection with our focused ion beam- scanning electron microscope that was cutting and imaging a worm (C. elegans) to study the neuronal connection at a certain stage of the life cycle.
Since the students needed to think beforehand which jobs they were interested in, all the students that came to my booth (appr. 40) actually wanted to know about science, which opened up the possibility to more in depth conversations, for example talking about animal research.
I enjoyed a lot interacting with the students and I hope that I could contribute to their decision about what they would like to do in the future.