{"id":261,"date":"2025-10-17T18:05:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/?p=261"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:03:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:03:45","slug":"dana-gawlitzek-the-msc-program-ultimately-shaped-me-into-a-more-well-rounded-and-capable-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/2025\/10\/17\/dana-gawlitzek-the-msc-program-ultimately-shaped-me-into-a-more-well-rounded-and-capable-scientist\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana Gawlitzek: ‘The MSc program ultimately shaped me into a more well-rounded and capable scientist’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

What is your name?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Dana Gawlitzek<\/p>\n

Where are you from?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

San Francisco, USA<\/p>\n

To which class do you belong?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

MSc Translational Neuroscience 2024\/25<\/p>\n

Where and what did you study before joining Imperial College London?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

I studied neuroscience (BS) at American University in Washington, DC<\/p>\n

How did you find your Master’s experience at the College?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

I found the Master\u2019s 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<\/p>\n

Which research project did you work on?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

My project was titled \u201cInvestigating the role of anxiety on vestibular control of balance during step initiation\u201d and I was supervised by Dr. Toby J. Ellmers<\/p>\n

Where are you now?\u00a0<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

What are you working on?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

I will be working on a project investigating the theory of mind development in children using fMRI<\/p>\n

What is the most important lesson you learnt as a\u00a0Master\u2019s\u00a0student?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

The most important lesson I learned during my Master\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t have predicted<\/p>\n

How did the Master\u2019s programme help you get to where you are now?<\/b><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}