{"id":2509,"date":"2008-12-05T06:38:47","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T06:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2008\/12\/reactions-cristina-lagunas.html"},"modified":"2011-12-20T11:08:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T11:08:46","slug":"reactions_cristina_lagunas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2008\/12\/reactions_cristina_lagunas.html","title":{"rendered":"Reactions – Cristina Lagunas"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. What made you want to be a chemist?<\/em><\/p>\n

A fascination for discovering new things. I remember watching, at an early age, an old movie about Marie Curie, and I was hooked by her passion for research. I had a very good chemistry teacher in secondary school and I really enjoyed learning about the structure of the atom and MO theory. As an undergraduate, I enjoyed the inorganic and coordination chemistry labs and my supervisors further inspired me to do research.<\/p>\n

2. If you weren\u2019t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d probably had done a maths degree, which was the other subject I loved in secondary school. With a maths degree, I think I would still have pursued an academic career.<\/p>\n

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?<\/em><\/p>\n

Energy and the environment are our two very challenging issues at the moment. Chemistry and chemists are central to both.<\/p>\n

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?<\/em><\/p>\n

Given my answer to question 1, it\u2019ll have to be Marie Curie. She was a truly remarkable woman at a time when women weren\u2019t even allowed to vote: two Nobel prizes (Physics, shared with husband Pierre and H. Becquerel, in 1903; and Chemistry in 1911) for her research on radiation and the discovery of elements such as radium and polonium; first female professor at the Sorbonne. The Curies believed in sharing scientific knowledge freely and never patented anything; and they warned about the danger of radioactive substances in the wrong hands. Marie relentlessly promoted the use of x-rays in medicine, but overlooked the dangers of radioactivity to health. I would like to know if she had done anything different, given what we know today.<\/p>\n

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?<\/em><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t done a full experiment from beginning to end for three or four years, but I do get into the lab and \u2018help\u2019 my students with their work now and then. The last time: a couple of weeks ago, helping a new PhD student to set up a reaction with nBuLi.<\/p>\n

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?<\/em><\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ll take the Spanish classic El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha<\/em> (or Don Quijote<\/em> for short), by Cervantes. It has tragedy, comedy and adventure in equal quantities; and I haven\u2019t actually read it properly (only in \u2018bits\u2019 in secondary school). A desert island will be a good place to cross it from the \u2018to read\u2019 books. Besides, it\u2019s set in my native region of La Mancha, so it\u2019ll remind me of home. As for a CD, I may take Unplugged<\/em> by Eric Clapton. I don\u2019t seem to get tired of listening to the songs.<\/p>\n

Cristina Lagunas<\/a> is in the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering<\/a> at Queen\u2019s University Belfast<\/a>, and works on luminescent metal complexes, in particular gold, and on molecular sensors. She is also involved in multidisciplinary research in electrochemistry and catalysis in ionic liquids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. What made you want to be a chemist?  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}