Franziska Sattler – Master’s Student

Name: Franziska Sattler
Job: 2nd year Master’s  student in Evolutionary  Biology, Biodiversity and Ecology
Source: ScienceGrrl [original post from March 2016]

Excerpt:

I  started  my  work  as  an  intern  in  the  Museum  für  Naturkunde  (Natural  History   Museum)  Berlin  after  a  gap  year  in  London  as  an  Au-‐Pair.  I  was  pretty  much  the  only  non-­student  who   has  ever  interned  there,  to  my  knowledge! The  same  autumn  I  started  my  undergrad  degree  in  Geology.

I never  really  left  my  position  at  the  museum  during  my  academic  career,  and  now  I  am   currently  writing  my  Master  thesis  on  our  new  Tyrannosaurus  rex, Tristan.  I’ve  always  been  really  into  teeth  (my  favourite  things  to  find in field work),  so  my  Bachelor  thesis  and  my  Master  teethis  (see  what  I  did  there!)  were  all  about  the  upper  and  lower  jaw  of  dinosaurs.

I’m  currently  a  research  assistant  at  the  MfN  and  basically  look  at  CT  scans  of  Tristan’s  skull  all  day.   Because  this  is  such  a  complete  specimen  (the  skull  is  98%  complete),  I  want  pay  special  attention  to  poorly   studied  parts  of  the  jaw  and  because  our  T.  rex  also  shows  abnormalities.  I  have  gotten  a   new-‐found  interest  in  Paleopathology.  It  is  very  likely  that  he/she  had  a  tumour!  How  cool  is  that?

Is this what you wanted to do, or did it happen by accident? 

This  is  something  I  have  always  wanted  to  do  since  I  was  a  little  girl.  Palaeontology  has  always  been  my  primary  interest  and  I  still  sometimes  can’t  believe  I  am  actually   doing  it.   After  my  A-­‐levels,  I  took  a  year  off  to  move  to  London. I  lived  there  for  around  14  months  with  a  lovely  family  in  North  London  where  I  looked  after  a   little  girl.  I  never  wanted  to  work  with  kids  to  be  honest,  but  it  has  made  me  grow  up  a  lot.  I  didn’t  want  to   go  straight  to  university.  I  didn’t  feel  ready  to  dive  straight  into  academia,  so  I  joined  the  MfN  as  an  intern   and  it  just  progressed  from  there. I  am  the  only  academic  in my  family.  I’ve  been  the  first  one  to  live  abroad, and  the  first  one  to  go  to  college  and  university. My  family  has  never  been  suuuuper  into  what  I  am  doing.  They’re  proud  and  think  I’m  the  smartest  girl  alive,  but  they  don’t  really  understand  it!

Read the rest at ScienceGrrl.