On February 11th, BaseClear celebrates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The BaseClear team would like to honour all women working in the science area and wishing them prosperous achievements and further successes in all their projects and career development. 
Today in the spotlight some of our own women in science. We asked about their motivation to work in this field. First one of our founders, Erna Barel, active in the scientific field for more than quarter of a century and very active in amongst other the entrepreneur association Leiden Bio Science Park. “From childhood on I was good in mathematics, I was a logical thinker, preferred to argue and never gave up. Combined with an entrepreneurial spirit I chose for a career in science and business. At this moment our company contributes to the exploitation and understanding of the microbial world.”
Also Evelien Zeinstra, who is working for BaseClear for over 12 years, and even before then was active for a number of years in the science industry. “I started in 1996 at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam my study in biomedical science, I loved science class in High school so for me it was natural to go in this direction. In 2001, I graduated and started to work directly in the field at the VU Medical Center as a lab technician in the Medical Microbiology and Infection department. It was a great journey to work in the diagnostics field to help the medical doctors and microbiologists to detect the infections of people and how to cure them. A career in Science for me is something that is always evolving, the technical development is very high and you always keep learning.”
Our Head of Business Development – Radhika Bongoni started her science career in the year 2004 and since then, science still remains to be a passion. “Science to me is the passion to reason & understand the things we live with. And I was, I’m and I will remain passionate. At BaseClear, I have the pleasure to work with internal and external people, who are equally passionate for science and advancements within the health & microbial genomics field”.
BaseClear’s Product Manager on Human Health – Eline Klaassens declares her passion for health and science a lucky combination and as a women working in science she dreams of translating her knowledge to application that contributes to society, health and sustainability. “My research combines my passion for understanding of health, multidisciplinary science, and personal intellectual development. Of course great benefits are meeting amazing passionate people all around the globe which is very inspiring and stimulating. This resulted in precious connections and friendships.”
The Product Manager of Skin Health – Savanne Holster claims she could not choose another career to build on, except science. “I find it fascinating that organisms so small as bacteria, fungi and viruses can have such an enormous effect on their environment. As a result I couldn’t choose for any other career than one in Science, in order to learn and find out more about this.”
Even though, our Account Manager – Anais Guebey, could not explain exactly why she chose science as her career path, she “blames” nature and biology for it. ” I can’t say exactly why I choose science, but it was in my blood since little, I was curious about nature, animals, health, earth and biology in general. With my neighbours, we were studying and analysing lizards in the garden and I remember very well my first neuroscience classes that I found fascinating!”
Besides working as Manager Next-Generation Sequencing at BaseClear, Diana van Rossen-Uffink is also a full-time mother which is happy to share with. Moreover, her passion for science started since childhood, as daughter of a chemist. “My journey into (life)science started at an early age, being the daughter of a chemist I find myself being curious and analytical of nature. I developed my interest in biology and physics in my early teens because these subjects felt above all familiar to me, never running out of topics to explore. I chose a life science career, specialising in Microbiology and now working in Biochemistry. To me, that feels like freedom, knowing I will never stop learning, never stop growing and exploring.”
BaseClear team would like to thank and congratulate all women who is working in the company for the hard-work and high-performance results.
