Coffee Break Science – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome back to Coffee Break Science Season 2! In this episode I'm joined by Christen Williams, co-founder of cancer prevention charity BRCA Chat who support people navigating a germline genetic mutation that significantly increases risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers.

The expert scientific landscape is then beautifully set by Dr Siddhartha Kar, associate professor of clinical epidemiology at the Early Cancer Institute, University of Cambridge.

You can find out more about BRCA chat on their website: https://brcachat.com/

Siddhartha's latest research: https://www.earlycancer.cam.ac.uk/dr-siddhartha-kar

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-025-04543-8

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/alcohol-breast-cancer-symptoms-cause-b2884770.html

Contact Ahsen with feedback, questions or if you're interested in sharing your story, contact her at au280@cam.ac.uk, or @ahsenonfilm on Instagram

It has been a while! Welcome back to Coffee Break Science. This season, we're brewing up something truly special.

This podcast is sponsored by NIHR Cambridge BRC Devices and Advanced Therapies Theme

In this episode, we explore Dr Atiya Sarmin's transition from a Bioengineering PhD to product management in a scale-up company using AI to improve drug discovery pipelines. We discuss the challenge that academia poses for women from BAME backgrounds, and how Atiya dealt with these challenges throughout her career so far. 

If you would like to find out more about Atiya, or connect with her, you can find her on Linkedin: (9) Atiya Sarmin, PhD | LinkedIn

In the final episode of Season 1, we are joined by the phenomenal Dr Amina Yonis, a research scientist by background who became a Youtuber with over 200K subscribers and set up her own academic consultancy business: ThePageDoctor

We discuss what Amina loved about academia, and what made her start her YouTube channel which has since grown into multiple other streams of income resulting in her eventually leaving academia to pursue her business and social media presence full time. Hope you enjoy our discussion!

(23) Dr Amina Yonis - YouTube

In this episode, Dr Carla Usai talks about her international career journey so far as a postdoctoral scientist in infectious disease. Carla has a science communication blog where she writes about viruses, immunology and more, in both English and Italian: Home – Virus&Co. (art.blog)

You can contact her on LinkedIn: (4) Carla Usai, PhD | LinkedIn

In this episode, I am joined by Dr Elham Sahafi, a dentist who became a scientist through a drive to make a difference to the lives of Head and Neck Cancer Patients. We talk about her incredible PhD research which found EGFR as a molecular biomarker for worsened prognosis for HNCSCC. You can find her publication mentioned in the episode here: EGFR overexpression increases radiotherapy response in HPV-positive head and neck cancer through inhibition of DNA damage repair and HPV E6 downregulation - ScienceDirect

We also talk about the challenge of going through pregnancy, miscarriage and motherhood during a PhD, and how Elham has managed to handle them all. You can connect with Elham on LinkedIn: (22) Elham Sahafi | LinkedIn

Today I'm joined by Dr Irem Ishlek, a clinical doctor who is currently undertaking paediatric training and we talk all things medical education, research during medical training and challenges commonly faced by doctors from minority backgrounds!

If you'd like to join or find out more about the Widening Participation Medics Network mentioned in the episode, you can do so here: Home | Widening Participation Medics Network (wpmedicsnetwork.com)

In this episode, we explore Dr Heather Fitzke's diverse career journey from social anthropology to public health & epidemiology, to a PhD and now post-doc in medical imaging in the field of neurogastroenterology. We explore the beauty and perils of working for the public sector, and academia in particular, and discover how Heather steered herself into the STEM field. 

If you work for a university, be sure to sign up for University and College Union: UCU - Join UCU

Did you know that PhD students in the UK are twice as likely than other educated members of the general public to report symptoms of depression or anxiety, according to a recent study published in Nature by Chris Woolston? 71% of PhD students have at least mild depression, while 74% have some level of anxiety. Please speak to your GP or university counselling service if you are struggling with your mental health!

In this episode, we explore Dr Joe Worrall's path to landing a PhD in molecular oncology, and how he decided to pursue a career in medical writing/publishing in the pharmaceutical industry, including his side hustle: The Examiners. Automatic Question & Flashcard Generator - The Examiners

The Examiners is a web-tool that Joe himself coded and allows university students to generate flashcards tailored to their own course content! Join us to hear how he was able to engineer this, navigate his PhD with all its technical challenges, and his thoughts on the medical publishing industry.

Today I am joined by Dr Hannah Thompson, who is a PhD scientist by training, but has now worked in many start-ups across product, business, operations and people functions. She has worked on software products that monitor health and enable precision medicine and clinical trials. We speak about how to navigate different jobs, not with the aim of finding the 'perfect' job, but rather, with the aim of increasing awareness of what you enjoy/ don't enjoy in a job to land a better next job. We speak about digital nomadism as a scientist-turned product manager. 

She is running a 'Become a Science Product Manager' Course with Wilbe, giving scientists insight into what it means to be a Product Manager at a Science Company and what key skills are needed: Home | GoPotato helping people who want to leave academia with: CV, financial planning, brand, interview energy, negotiation, finding their passion, storytelling and more 

And for fun she’s starting a tiktok where she’ll dress up as various potato snacks and share career advice for scientists - @gopotatoteam

Hannah Thompson, PhD | LinkedIn