Some of the most rewarding moments in my PhD have happened outside the lab as well. Recently, I took part in CCI (Current Chemistry Investigators), an outreach programme that brings real science into schools. I joined fellow researchers at St Mary’s College Ballysadare in Co. Sligo on 23rd January to demonstrate experiments to secondary school students.

The idea was simple: show students that science isn’t just something in textbooks. It’s hands-on and curious, and it’s connected to the problems around us. We ran live demonstrations, and it was great to see students move from watching to asking questions and wanting to try things themselves. Some of the best questions came from students who said at the start that science “wasn’t really their thing.”

I also shared a bit about my own work. As part of the NANAQUA project, I study how nanomaterials used to clean wastewater might affect the bacteria in treatment plants. Explaining that to teenagers was a good challenge. It reminded me that if you can’t explain why your research matters in a few sentences, you probably need to think about it more clearly.

A big part of the day was talking about careers. Many students don’t know what a researcher does day to day, or that a path into research can start from many backgrounds. Mine started in environmental and civil engineering. I wanted them to leave knowing that research is a real, reachable career

Outreach like CCI matters because the next generation of scientists is sitting in classrooms right now. If one student leaves thinking, “I could do that,” the day was worth it.