Sara Rankin
Professor
At school I felt humiliated and deeply frustrated. The humiliation came from being referred to as clumsy and slow and pulled up for my embarrassingly poor reading and spelling, I was terrified of having to read out loud in class. The frustration from knowing inside my head that I did actually understand, but just couldn’t communicate it on paper.
Despite this I was fundamentally curious, specifically about how the body works. While languages were a challenge Science was easy. I had a break through at school when I found that if I turned text into pictures it stuck and that’s when all my grades took a sudden jump.
I never had a career plan, I just did what I enjoyed. At University you realise that being a scientist is not about knowing stuff it is about your ability to innovate, invent and discover.
Being dyslexic and dyspraxic - means that I am creative and visionary, I can see the big picture and have an ability to link disparate ideas, these skills, give me an edge winning awards for innovation in science and public engagement. Now I enjoy working with others in large inter-disciplinary teams where my skill-set can complement theirs. I am currently working to make teaching at University accessible for students with specific learning differences (SpLDs) as well as developing STEM workshops for students with SpLDs.