Here we are sharing the interview with our first author from LifeScientist. Aspen Lin is Chinese and works as Scientific Writer for GenScript in China.
Where did you study? Bachelor? Master? Ph.D.?
I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at Yangzhou University in China and held another master’s degree in biology from Western Illinois University in the US. I didn’t continue to pursue a doctor’s degree because my wife was doing so, and someone got to make money for the family, LOL. She is always a better researcher than me.
Why and how did you become a scientific writer?
When I was a graduate student, I did some scientific experiments under my supervisor’s guidance and wrote a couple of papers that we wanted to publish. During the process, I read a lot about scientific advances and was amazed at how essential life sciences are to improve everyone’s life. I couldn’t believe that most people around me didn’t realize that. Therefore, I thought maybe it was good to write articles about scientific advances and let people know how wondrous life sciences are approaching. In addition, the acceptance of my research articles by peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules also convinced me that I could be an excellent science writer. So, as doctoral research was not an option for me, I chose to work as a scientific writer at GenScript. It is my first job after graduation.
What do you do as a scientific writer?
As partly mentioned above, my primary responsibility as a scientific writer is to write articles about recent life science advances and expose them to respond to readers’ concerns through multiple channels such as social media, EDM, websites, etc.
How much do you like this career?
I won’t say I am always crazy about writing scientific articles. Sometimes, it could be a disaster if you have a deadline ahead and you can’t get a single word out of your head. However, when inspiration does come, it’s a different story, and you have the feeling that it’s going to be an excellent article. I love that feeling. I can see my improvements by reading those articles and feel good about myself. I treat writing as working on a piece of art. There’s always going to be room for improvement, the task is a challenging one, but the important thing is you are making progress.
