User:Jelena

From 2006.igem.org

Jelena Aleksic

I'm a Genetics student at the University of Edinburgh, now fast approaching my final year of uni. I'm originally from Belgrade, Serbia, but have been in Scotland for 8 years - almost long enough to call myself a native (the fact that I've started liking whisky and haggis are definite warning signs). iGEM is my first ever proper science project, and I'm really excited about it :)

Contact

E-mail: s0347043@sms.ed.ac.uk

Academic interests

I love anything that's maths and logic related, evolutionary theory, genetics / genomics, making multi-coloured animals (have you seen how cute green mice look? kangaroos are the next natural step. well, ok, maybe not natural as such, but you know what I mean...), the philosophy of quantum physics (the fact that it's philosophy means you get the fun mind-bending ideas without actually having to understand the scary physics equations), Italian, political theory, sitting in pubs with philosophers arguing about morals and reality.

Hobbies

Travelling as much as possible, to places as varied as possible. Ideally learning lots of stuff and meeting lots of interesting people along the way

Fundraising and campaigning: I did face-to-face fundraising for a while as a summer job, and it's seriously addictive!

Edinburgh University Philosophy Society: I became president about 3 months ago, sort of a natural climax since PhilSoc has been taking over my life for years.

Fire spinning: it gets you to beautiful places, allows you to meet beautiful people, and it's a lot less dangerous than it looks. I do poi, staff, and I recently acquired a fire whip :)

Massage therapy: I'm qualified to do Swedish and Thai massage. I'd love to learn more - I guess I'll just have to do a tour of massage schools around the world :)

Pole dancing: no, not profesionally, I just get lessons. It's more fun than going to the gym, I claim it's very feminist (and have a good justifying argument for that claim), plus it's fun to watch people's expressions when I mention it as a hobby.

Playing guitar: badly. But it's fun.

Useful team information

I take coffee with milk, no sugar. I prefer red apples rather than green ones.