23rd December 2025
Dear wonderful supporters of my journey,
It's a special time of year, so I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a merry Christmas and happy holidays. I also thought it was also a good time to give an update and thank you for all of the exciting things that have happened in the last part of 2025!
Since returning to Melbourne after finishing my Masters, I've been very busy! I started my DPhil (PhD) in October and got straight to work learning important techniques that I'll use during the next three years and beyond. I also went through matriculation (again!) although you are only allowed to officially matriculate once, so my friend did an unofficial ceremony for me :)
My parents then arrived in Oxford for my graduation ceremony for my Masters, which was absolutely brilliant. Some of my friends who have now left Oxford came back to graduate on the same day, so celebrating a year I'm very proud of with them and with my parents was magical.
I then flew to USA for the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, which confused me, because I didn't know Christmas came in October too!!! It was such an incredible experience, being one of twenty thousand neuroscientists attending and learning about the most cutting-edge work all around the world. I met some of my scientific heroes, visited labs at Berkeley and Stanford, filled in my perspective on where my DPhil work fits in compared to everything else, and schemed lots about how I can make the best scientific contribution over the next few years.
Since returning to Oxford, I have been laying the foundations for some exciting, novel experiments in the new year. I've managed to use one of the connections I made at the conference to get my hands on the latest and greatest light-sensitive protein for this work, so hopefully that will arrive soon as a late Christmas present! I'm feeling very thankful and know that I made the right decision by choosing my lab at Oxford, my supervisor is brilliant scientifically and as a person too. These upcoming experiments will help me decide where I focus my efforts in the future, so I can't wait to get started!
Thank you all for your support - after all, I wouldn't get to do half of these incredible things if not for the opportunities that I have been lucky enough to have over the past year and a half. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a lovely holiday, surrounded by beautiful people that make you feel like yourself!
All the best,
Ethan