Profile

Hi! My name is Miriam Fontanillo Dolz and I am a PhD student at EMBL Heidelberg. I am from a small town in Teruel called Cantavieja, which is located in the east of Spain. I studied chemistry and then a master in medicinal chemistry at Jaume I University in Castellón, a city by the seaside close to my home town. I have always wanted to help people to be happy and this is why I got interested in disease prevention and treatment. I joined EMBL because I wanted to contribute to increasing our current biological knowledge about cancer and trying to find better and new therapies to fight against this deadly disease. I love giving presentations, talking to people and communicating my research. This is why I became an EMBL School Ambassador, which has been an unforgettable experience.

Diary

After three years of working at EMBL, I found it was a good time to go back to my former high school and share my experiences with young students. I contacted the director of IES Francés de Aranda in Teruel and he was really happy to hear about the EMBL School Ambassador program. In order to organise my talk, I contacted my former chemistry and maths teachers. It was nice to discover that they still remembered me after almost ten years.

On the 22nd of December 2016, I visited my former high school. After more than one hour drive with a bit of snow, I got to the school. As soon as I saw the building, lots of good memories came to my mind. I immediately found a group of both former and newcomer teachers who were excited to meet me and talk about science, research, work, careers and living abroad. Then, I gave a talk to around 40 students. Although it was the last day before the Christmas break, they were really quiet and showed a lot of interest throughout my talk. First of all, I talked about science and scientists in general. I wanted to show them that scientists are not dark, weird people like the stereotypes shown in films but normal people. After that, I told them what I did after I left high school and finally about my projects at EMBL. I asked them several questions throughout my talk and although they were a bit shy at the beginning, they got more and more motivated and in the end they asked me several questions. Most of them were worried about their careers because they were not sure about what to study. I remembered having the same doubts when I was their age and I encouraged them to explore and find out what they really like. I also told them not to be worried about making mistakes because it is always possible to change fields. As an example, I told them that I am a chemist and I am working in a molecular biology laboratory. I hope I could transmit my passion for science and motivate them to study further and find their own passion. When I finished my talk, I gave them some EMBL sweets and pens and they were really happy with them.

In general, it was an unforgettable and extremely rewarding experience that I would recommend everybody.