Resourceful, collaborative, inventive

"As an early-career researcher and research staff member, Munashe has been truly inspiring in her dedication, versatility, and perseverance. She constantly seeks opportunities to learn and share her knowledge, mastering multiple modes of screening and collaborating with teams from Cardiff to Manchester. When the need arises, she willingly puts in extra hours, never shying away from challenges or responsibilities, but always with a balanced and thoughtful approach to her and others’ work and wellbeing. Her disciplined approach to research sets a high standard for our lab. She carefully plans, documents, and organises her work, showing a deep respect for scientific rigour and reproducibility. Recognising that our team needed stronger analytical skills, she took the initiative to complete courses in R and Python, and then helped me personally with coding, data management, and analysis, ensuring I could meet a tight deadline and better understand the computational aspects of my project. When I was running long 23 hour assays, she volunteered to assist, helping me optimise the process and reduce the total run time to 16 hours. Her generosity with time and knowledge continues to benefit everyone around her. In one particularly demanding project, Munashe set out to demonstrate the interaction between two proteins. When the initial assay failed, she did not lose heart. Instead, she tried eight different approaches, ranging from co-immunoprecipitation and pull down assays to fluorescence based techniques and computational analyses, each attempt revealing something new about the proteins’ behaviour. Her resourcefulness and inventive problem solving turned what seemed impossible into a valuable learning experience for the whole lab. Her collaborative spirit extends well beyond the bench. She contributes to public engagement events such as the Green Man Festival and Science in the Park, and visits local schools to teach Year 3 pupils how to experiment and ask scientific questions. Outside the lab, Munashe keeps the team spirit alive, organising meet ups, cooking meals for colleagues, and sharing her energy through hip hop dance and running. She also manages the social media for the ECR ANDME society and creates engaging videos, including one celebrating a colleague’s adoption journey. Munashe is the light every lab needs, resourceful, collaborative, and inventive, inspiring those around her daily through her creativity, kindness, and determination."

Nominated by Tika Malla, Guenther Group/ ODDI, University of Oxford, United Kingdom