These days I remembered about my discovery from last year: a beautiful cell colony in a heart shape. I took a picture of this colony and I participated to the Doctoral College Photography Competition. The theme of the competition was resilience in research. The judging panel decided to give the research project award to my picture. I hope that my thoughts and this nice heart colony will bring you a smile and some optimistic perspective in the rainy days that we all have to face sometimes.

Postgraduate research can be very stressful and emotional demanding. This happens because you invest more than time or resources, you invest your passions and your aspirations. You work hard in order to discover something, which will make a difference and will make this world a better place to leave. But how can you keep going when nothings seems to work? Well there are different approaches for each of us. As for me one of the challenges is to see the beauty and the full part of the glass when the others cannot see it. My picture shows the beauty of a colony of cells (no editing). After a tidies work when you are tired to image and count cells and you almost want to go home and forget about them, out of the sudden they are communicating love. Even if some of you will not consider that is as love, it is still a kind of art that makes me smile and helps me to keep going. This is resilience for me.

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/doctoral-college/research-community/research-photography-competition-and-exhibition.page