Profile

I live in Norwich with my girlfriend, both of us are Hungarian. Sadly we have no pets (yet!), but have a bunch of plants we love equally. I love Italian food, martial arts and comedy.

I study bacteria with computers – what I mean by this, is that we collect a bunch of knowledge about the bacteria, put it into a computer, and try to see how much of this collection behaves like the real thing.

This is really handy, because you can do experiments on this collection – or what we call a model – without actually going to the lab.

Since computers can do these experiments really fast, you can quickly find out what are the questions that are worth putting the extra time into, and checking it in the “real world”, a laboratory.

I use a special kind of model, called a network model. These networks models show how the parts that make up the bacteria work together, which parts connect to which parts. They look something like this:

The circles show the parts of the bacteria, and the lines connecting them show what is connected to what.

This kind of model can be used to show any kind of relationship, it has many real life uses. Social networks, such as Facebook can be described in a very similar way.

My typical day starts around 8:00, which is when I usually wake up. I catch up on the news while I get ready, brew some coffee and walk to work – I am so lucky to live near by!

I usually start working around 9:00 in this beautiful building.

In the first hour or so I sit at my desk, and reply to e-mails and similar things. Between 10:00 – 12:00 I try to get as much work done as possible. This usually means sitting at my computer, and testing out ideas by writing programs, or just thinking hard and scribbling/taking notes in a notebook that get tested later on.

My handwriting could be nicer.

Sometimes we have invited speakers during the day. They give lectures about what they study. You can learn a lot from these!

Sometimes in the afternoon I meet with my boss, my supervisor. He is a really smart, accomplished scientist who guides my when I try to figure out some answers.

The rest of the workday goes like the 10:00-12:00 part – I think about possible solutions, and try to do them on the computer.

I usually get home around 18:00-19:00, I work out a little bit, cook dinner, and spend time with my girlfriend. We like to go on walks in the evening, the area around us is really pretty.

We have a lot of horses living nearby!