Meet the Intern: Nadine Juarez-Rendon

Hi there, my name is Nadine, and I am the new PGR Writing intern for 2023-2024. I am so excited and ready to be here. Keep reading, you will find a little bit about me and about my role.

My Role

My role focuses on planning, monitoring, hosting, and evaluate PGR writing resources, such as writing workshops, writing retreats, and peer writing support. I will also be working and delivery events such as the fascinating WriteFest. And of course, the UofG PGR Blog is part of my job as well! I will keep the Blog interesting with real and fascinating submissions!! Now that I have mentioned the blog, if you have an idea/topic of submission, please do let me know 😊 - I am also here to support Sasha (our PGR Events Intern) with the running of events such as 3 Minute Thesis and Visualise Your Thesis (VYT).

Our previous interns Rachel and Karen have done an excellent and meaningful job for the PGR community. These will be difficult shoes to fill after all their amazing work. But I promise I will do my best to create a creative, safe, and resourceful space for and to the PGR community.

My PhD journey

Well well, the biggest part of me… I am a 4th year Ph.D. student at the School of Science and Engineering, within the Systems, Power, and Energy Division. My research focuses on tackling the bottlenecks of microalgae production, specifically cultivation conditions such as culture media for their grow and location of cultivation i.e., Scotland vs Colombia; and how these conditions affect the microalgae consumption in human health, through in vitro digestion models. I am basically a biotechnologist/microbiologist trying to convince you that microalgae are genius producers… but also fun microorganisms. I am finishing up the last experiments of my research by the second week of December 2023 (hopefully, fingers crossed) but working alongside my thesis as I am due to finish it by Spring 2024.

The biggest thing that my Ph.D. journey has taught me is that if I can do a Ph.D. program, I am literally capable of do anything. My strength and courage have increased 1000%.

*Eppendorf tubes with blue-pigment extracted from cyanobacteria*

*Microscope imaging of Cyanobacteria single cell breaking down by co-living bacteria culture*

Nadine’s interest

As busy as all that sounds, I have time for things outside my PhD life…

I love painting and spend time with my husband, Luke, and our dog, Murphy. Luke and I have been together for almost 4 years now, and we got married last year in Mexico (my home country). He has been my rock and my best friend since we met.

Hey, Luke! If you are reading this blog, don’t think I mentioned you because I would like to go to Celino’s tonight and have a seafood pasta 😊

About Murphy, he is my best-dog friend. He is a small mix of two dog’s breed, not sure what. Murphy is almost 11 years old and even though is a very grumpy dog, he can never leave the couch or bed specifically when I am trying to rest…

I forgot to mention, but incredibly, sometimes I go to the gym, I play tennis and I love baking carrot and banana cake. About my tennis hobby, if you are interested on a match, please do let me know, I have rackets to share.

*Murphy picture looking at the camera. Luke is holding him with his hands*

My hopes and Aims for This Year

I think my hopes and aims as PGR Writing Intern for this year are very simple. I would like to plan and create writing resources for the PGR community that can have meaningful impact on their student life but also for whatever we would like to go after this. I am willing to work on writing support and activities that allow PGR to find and enjoy the writing process. I really believe that with the correct resources and supportive community, we can see writing as something beautiful, creative, and necessary within our professional life. It is wonderful to see our ideas, thoughts, results, reports, becoming real when they are in a piece of paper!

I am thrilled to collaborate with the Research Culture and Development team to deliver positive and interesting spaces for the amazing team that #UofG is!

That’s me!

Thank you for reading until this point. I think now you have enough initial information about myself. Probably too much, I tend to do that haha.

One last thing, if you fancy to know new people, and share a bit about yourself, why not try our PGR walks on Wednesdays, from 13-14? We meet outside the Gilchrist club and then we go for a gently walk in good and interesting company

That’s me. Let’s have a productive and creative year!

Un caluroso saludo.

Nadine