Professor Juliet Gerrard
As a biochemist, Professor Juliet Gerrard's area of special interest is proteins. 'Proteins are extremely versatile molecules, and our contemporary understanding of how they interact with each other is opening up an increasing number of applications with huge potential benefit to society,' she says.
Professor Gerrard says her teaching role is at least as much about coaching as learning. 'In all my teaching I seek to challenge and excite my students, and coax them out of their comfort zones in order that they may push themselves to their full potential. I believe that the point at which they leave this comfort zone is where they learn the most.
'My aim is to lead students to the point where they take responsibility for their own learning, and are enthusiastic and excited about doing so. All students reach this point at a different stage in their learning, from early undergraduate to finishing postgraduate, and the challenge is to find this point for each student.
'So I try to individualise my teaching as much as possible. I achieve this through class discussions and extra tutorials, an open door policy, "optional extras" to challenge those at the top of the class, and providing prompt feedback on work handed in.'
Apart from teaching, Professor Gerrard says the thing she likes most about her subject is the variety of work. 'I enjoy the fact that it is multi-disciplinary and involves working with people from different disciplines and different places.'
That variety is illustrated by her work at the Biomolecular Interaction Centre (BIC) which she Co-Directs with Professor Conan Fee from Chemical and Process Engineering. A founder member of the team which launched BIC at UC in 2007 and went on to win a multi-million dollar investment from the University in 2009, Professor Gerrard is excited about the increased attention BIC is receiving internationally for its research. 'We are now gaining critical mass, attracting more high-profile researchers and more grants from overseas. There are lots of projects going on that we hope will lead to breakthroughs soon.'
Researchers at BIC are working on new forms of antibiotic design to combat diseases such as tuberculosis and meningitis; there are also projects ranging from antidotes to biological weapons such as sarin nerve gas or anthrax, to proteins that can improve the texture or nutritional value of foods.
'There is an exciting future for BIC and for scientific research in this region,' she says. 'The most exciting thing about cutting-edge research is that some of the best projects haven't even been thought of yet.'
Professor Gerrard's advice to anyone considering studying Chemical or Biological Sciences is to 'take a broad range of science subjects early on, and that will give you a great skill-set from which to contribute to this multi-disciplinary field'.