Biophysical Society Bulletin | July-August 2022

Biophysicist in Profile

While her research itself is rewarding, so is the response to it. “I feel quite accomplished when I receive emails with comments on my work from people I have never met before. These can be colleagues from the other side of the world, who share my excitement on the findings of a paper which just got published, or people outside the scientific communi ty who want to make our findings known to the public,” she shares. “It is nice to see that the work reaches beyond our circles.” In a move that satisfied both this desire to engage with the wider community and Gözen’s long-standing interest in visual arts, her group recently organized a contemporary art exhibit at a prominent gallery in downtown Oslo. “We themed it ‘NanoCosmos,’ and showed striking microscopy images of soft materials, mainly molecular film structures and patterns. We were involved in the whole process of setting up the exhi bition; it was an amazing experience. We are bound to do this again,” she reports. Biophysical Society meetings have been a helpful venue to connect with researchers she might not otherwise meet. “The Annual Meetings are for me an absolute highlight. I have hardly missed a meeting for more than 10 years now, ever since I was a PhD student,” she says. “They have had a sig nificant impact in shaping my career. Throughout the years I met a lot of amazing researchers from all over the world who also regularly attend the meeting, some of whom became my collaborators and friends.” Asked what advice she might offer to those just starting out in biophysics careers, Gözen responds, “I think not being afraid to get out of my comfort zone, being open to learning new methods, and talking to a lot of people about research in a broader context helped me a lot and I highly recommend this approach. Biophysics is not straightforward, but attacking problems from different angles and solving pieces of a puzzle together with other researchers who have different views and backgrounds makes the challenging journey quite worth while.”

Gözen holding a petri dish containing a rare meteorite specimen fromMars.

Profiles in Biophysics No two biophysicists have the same story. Read about the many paths that led each of them to become a biophysicist. www.biophysics.org/profiles-in-biophysics

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July-August 2022

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