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Isabelly de Lima
She/Her
Not a Hero, a Scientist!
Isabelly's Notable career moments
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Mum would nurse me while watching science fiction tv shows.
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The obsession with nature documentaries begins at 3 years old.
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Read my first book by myself called “Gross Insects”.
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Decided on a whim to study biology at university.
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Found out I loved genetics after being terrified of it for years.
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Moved across Brazil to study what I love.
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Moved from Brazil to Australia to study what I love.
About Isabelly de Lima
Ever since I was a small child, I would trap every adult in sight with all sorts of impossible questions.
“Why is the sky blue?”
“How are planes able to fly?”
“Why do some vegetables taste so yucky?”
Some people might grow out of this phase, but not me – that is why I become a scientist!
Science is all about asking questions, being curious and searching for answers.
In fact, my thirst for knowledge is so big, it brought me all the way from Brazil to study in Australia. I flew over 40 hours in 5 connecting flights across 15,500 kilometres, that’s the length of 48 Tasmanias!
In Tasmania I get to do all sorts of cool science things in the lab. I wear gloves and a lab coat, I look through microscopes, and I even mix colourful liquids… but my favourite part is working with cells!
Cells are tiny bits of our body, responsible for the smallest reactions that go on inside of us. Since I work with a disease that affects the human eyes, my cells act just like an eye would. They don’t blink at me, unfortunately, but everything they do is very similar to what the tiny bits of our eyes would do.
I’m not going to lie, sometimes science is super hard. It might even feel like a difficult puzzle, you set everything up perfectly, there’s no reason this shouldn’t work, but then… it doesn’t. Maybe not even after the 50th time!
When this happens to me, I get frustrated and annoyed, but nothing tops the excitement when it finally works, I even have a little celebration dance I do every time! The best part is when you look back and realize all the things you learned along the way.