Mini-profiles of STEM Role Models 18

Today’s mini-profile is of Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow, Sandy Schmidt, who started her position at the University of Groningen at a similar time to me, so I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her through various training courses and other events.

I hope that you enjoy this mini-profile and the others in the series!

Job title:

Assistant Professor (Rosalind Franklin Fellow) in the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Biology group (Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen)

Subject area:

Exploiting enzymes for the production of natural products and their analogs for pharmaceutical applications.

How did you get into science?:

Thanks to my chemistry teacher at secondary school, I became fascinated by chemical reactions, and I still remember very well the sometimes risky experiments our teacher demonstrated. Next to my passion for chemistry, I was fascinated by the metabolic pathways we studied in class. So it came quite naturally that I decided to study biochemistry as it nicely combined both worlds. Later on, I was impressed how well my PhD supervisor guided his large research group, that’s why I decided to start a path in academia, and to guide my own research group and science, which I’m happily doing ever since.

Where else have you worked/studied?

I did my diploma in biochemistry as well as my PhD at the University of Greifswald (Germany). Afterwards, I started my PostDoc at TU Delft (The Netherlands), then I moved to Graz University of Technology (Austria) for a group leader position. And finally, I moved to RUG in April 2020.

What are your hobbies/what do you do for fun?

Horse riding, stand up paddling, travelling.