I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand. I had an interest in science and public speaking from a very young age. I completed high school and moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, where I completed a Bsc in anatomy with a neuroscience focus at the University of Otago (the southernmost university in the world!). Du
ring my degree I took several botany papers and fell in love with the subject, so continued my studies at Otago with a post graduate diploma in botany. At the end of that year I was looking for a Ph.D. topic and I found an interesting combination of botany and neuroscience with a study of the effects of synthetic cannabinoids on inflammation in the ischemic brain.
Under the supervision of Dr. John Ashton I enjoyed the roller-coaster of Ph.D. life and learnt the valuable lesson of applying a skeptical eye even to the most reputable sources. John really shaped me into the scientist I am today. He taught me the importance of just thinking (you’d be surprised how much this is overlooked in the average lab). I’m now doing post-doctoral research on Alzheimer’s disease and inflammation at the University of Manchester under the inspirational supervision of Dr. David Brough and Dr. Catherine Lawrence.
For more information checkout www.jackauty.com