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Zoologist, microbiologist and science champion Bushra Schuitemaker has carved out a career in research and is determined to ensure young people from disadvantaged backgrounds know that science is for them too.
Growing up in a single parent household in rural Essex, entitled to free school lunches, Bushra's stella science career is all the more remarkable because her local secondary school offered pupils no opportunities at all to take science A-level courses.
Positive she wanted to study zoology at university, she asked the school board put on A-level biology – which they did. Years later, the school has full physics, chemistry and biology classes and her old school teacher was so proud to see Bushra front and centre of the British Science Week smashing stereotypes campaign, she contacted her to tell her.
Even once at university, Bushra felt she had to work much harder than her peers, but all became clearer when Bushra's tutor encouraged her to go for learning assessments and she discovered she had both dyslexia and dyspraxia.
Thinking differently gives Bushra a superpower, she says, and her professional achievements include working for Cancer Research UK at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and she is currently researching obesity in children and puppies' gut health at Biome9 and the Quadram Institute for the Guide Dogs organisation,
Bushra credits the award-winning academic Dr Louise van der Weyen at Sanger-Wellcome for her allyship helping her push back against the bias and lazy assumptions based on her Arabic family name (Abu-Helil) when publishing a paper. She also names Professor Arjan Narbad for his mentorship during her career journey.
Cancer Research UK
The Wellcome Sanger Institute
The Quadram Institute
University of East Anglia
Anglia Ruskin University Zoology
Guide Dogs organisation
Girl Guiding UK
Lilongwe Wildlife Trust
Season 1 Episode 11: Sarah Ashworth, Researcher developer at University of Manchester
Season 1 Episode 7: Rachel Warren, Professor of global change and environmental biology, The Tyndall Centre UEA
Season 3 Episode 10: Matthew Halteman, Philosophy professor and animal and food ethicist
Season 2 Episode 1: Lydia Carrington, Sustainability manager Edgbaston Stadium
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