Dr Samantha Pendleton
Wrangler of data, ontologies, and clusters.
Thrower of pots, controllers, and eggs.
Max Perutz Science Writing Award Entry
Weaving webs for smarter science This piece was submitted for the 2019 Max Perutz Science Writing Award. A competition for MRC students to write about their science to the public. It is aimed for students to communicate about their PhD in a way that a wider audience, such as non-scientific individuals, can understand - to help us build our communication skills. How can we do great science if we can’t find useful information?
Masters Dissertation
Metagenomics of Acid Soil: a study of Nanopore long-reads and Acidobacteria tl;dr: check out a summarised version of the dissertation. Developed a tool to classify unclassified Acidobacteria, acidoseq.
Introduction Since I enjoyed my Summer Bioinformatics research position (2017), for my Masters dissertation I hoped to work with Amanda Clare again.
Amanda spoke to the same research group, who had new sequences for me to look at. These reads were derived using Nanopore sequencing from Aberystwyth soil.
Outsider Perspective of a PhD
Witnessing my partner writing their PhD tl;dr: a PhD is an emotional rollercoaster with side effects (sleep talking).
My partner, Sam, successfully passed his PhD Viva, taking ~4.5 hours. He monitored his heart rate and plotted it, seems quite a traumatic event.
This blog post is to acknowledge the stress of a PhD from a friend, partner, and outsider perspective. I hope this post isn’t misunderstood or reflects any selfishness: I am writing to acknowledge this stressful experience.
Lovelace Colloquim
BCS Lovelace Colloquim tl;dr: my first conference, very fun!
The BCS Lovelace Colloquium is an annual conference for women and non-binary individuals in computer science and related fields. I submitted an abstract based on the poster from the Bioinformatics research I had done the Summer previously.
This year’s conference (2018) was held in Sheffield, which I was both excited and nervous as I had only ever visited few places in the UK.
Bioinformatics
My first Bioinformatics experience tl;dr: see the research poster.
Introduction Preface: Bioinformatics covers a wide range of areas, e.g. developing complex algorithms to answering complex questions.
Aberystwyth University advertised a position for a Summer research position in Bioinformatics. I always had an interest in Biology, yet slightly worried as I didn’t have much scientific coding experience, but I was more than willing to learn.
“An analysis of current state of the art software on nanopore metagenomic data”.
Old Poem
Banging Playground WARNING: read at your own cringe. I made this poem when I was 11 years old (2007) for English class. I was notoriously terrible at poems. It’s foggy, we’re drowsy, with the sound of bangs; We’re crawling around the best we can.
Shouting, exploding, and pushing to the limit; It’s raining mud, the sun seems timid.
Sweaty, dizzy, and confused; The youths are rising and all bruised.
Smoggy gas shading a purple and green light, Reaching for my gas mask as my chest becomes tight.
Undergraduate
Highlights during my Undergraduate degree Although this post was written in 2023, it is backdated to 2017. I started my Undergraduate degree at Aberystwyth University in 2014. Originally, I didn’t plan on leaving Liverpool, but I was - thankfully - persuaded by an IT teacher, who sparked my interest in computers.
I discovered that I learn best through working examples and assignments. When it came to exam season, I did struggle a little.