Question: what do you find interesting on crystals and teaching

Kate Nicholson answered on 18 Mar 2014:

I love teaching because I like to see other people reach their potential, and sometimes they can’t do this in a normal school setting or just need someone to explain in a different way. If I can help someone get to that penny dropping moment then I feel great too.

Crystal growing, well, where to begin? I was always fascinated by the pretty gemstones and rocks in museums, wondering just how such massive crystals can grow and how the molecules that make them pack together in different ways to give different things, like a ruby and sapphire are the same stuff, the only difference is tiny amounts of impurities that give them their colour (Chromium in a Ruby, Titanium and Iron in a sapphire) I wanted to be able to make things as beautiful as we find in nature, and work out how to control it better,which is why I chose the PhD I did.