The NatSCA Annual Conference 2018 in Leeds – thoughts of a bursary awardee

My name is Meg Cathcart-James, and I am Project Officer for the Cole Museum of Zoology at the University of Reading. I graduated from the university with a BSc in Ecology and Wildlife Conservation, and was lucky enough to be employed in this role as I continue on to a PhD, also on the subject of ecology.

I mention this little introduction to my background for a reason; with no real zoological knowledge, museum training or experience, when I first started working for the Cole I felt a bit like an impostor, an outsider. Throughout my undergraduate degree and entering into postgraduate research, I have seen and experienced this before; I think it is quite a common feeling in the academic world and as I began to work closely with the museum’s curator, Professor Amanda Callaghan, and engage with other staff in the wider university museum team, I felt this more acutely. That is, until I went to the NatSCA Conference in Leeds earlier this year.

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