Safak Er

Safak Er is a PhD candidate and member of our organisation team at Art Meets Science. She is from Izmir, Turkey, and has been living in Helsinki for 5 years. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in the Airavaara research group, co-supervised by Mikko Airavaara and Andrii Domanskyi. She undertakes research and teaches at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki.  

She is highly passionate about her research, a passion that has stemmed from a desire to contribute to society. Safak believes that science communication is needed to create a broader impact for our research, something that cannot be created solely by traditional research methods i.e. experiments or publishing in scientific journals.

According to her, science should be open to everyone, and scientists should do more to facilitate this. She quotes: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 

She is very happy to contribute to Art Meets Science and says that the project is a great fit for her as it combines many interests. She defines herself as an extremely outgoing and easy to talk to individual who puts these qualities into effective use to communicate about science at any opportunity: “I regularly speak about my science with my family and school children…etc., I took over the University of Helsinki’s Instagram account, and I have also volunteered in events promoting education, technology, and science.”  

Safak says the last few months have been busy, helping to organise Art Meets Science as well as participating in her group’s collaboration. However, she has also found the experience to be extremely rewarding: “I feel more motivated when I get to undertake several different tasks at the same time and to meet new people.” Safak is looking forward to the opening day of the event the most: The art, the science, the people, and all the new conversations this event inspires within Helsinki’s communities can hopefully spark an interest in science.  

You can read more about Safak’s research within the Airavaara group on their website and follow her on Twitter.