How sewing can set you up for failure and success in science

Yasmin Proctor-Kent 00:08 I don’t think I can sew without engaging the same part of my brain that I do science with. David Payne 00:14 This is Creativity in Science , a series brought to you by Nature Careers. Yasmin Proctor-Kent 00:19 Both endeavours, you need to be very creative, and it’s about applying theoretical knowledge to something tactile, something practical that you’re doing. I find them really really hard to separate in my brain. David Payne 00:39 A podcast about how science and creativity go hand in hand, and about how one can nurture the other. Yasmin Proctor-Kent 00:48 The level of planning, the level of research and experimentation that I’ll do before I start working on the final garment is something akin to what I would do to get to the point where I have a successful experiment. David Payne 01:04 Here’s a researcher who applies the scientific process to their hobby, and to such success that it took them on a journey to TV stardom. Yasmin Proctor-Kent 01:20 Hi. My name is Yasmin Proctor-Kent. I am currently a lead R&D scientist working in cancer diagnostics at Leica Biosystems in Melbourne. Before I moved into industry, I was in academia looking at mRNA and RNA in mitochondria. So I genuinely don’t remember learning how to sew. It’s always been a skill that was associated, or a skill that was practiced in my family. Not in the sense that I do it now. So we didn’t sew our own clothes, but we were very practical, so if something broke, you fixed it. …