Spotlight on: Donna Easton

Q&A with Donna Easton, Floor Manager

How long have you been with IMB?

Since January 2016. I’ve been working at UQ since 2010.

What does a typical day look like for you and what are you currently working on?

There is no typical day for a Floor Manager. You can start the day with an empty calendar and end up not stopping all day, and you can start the day with a full calendar and end up with everything being cancelled on you (or you have to cancel on them because something more urgent came up). You really have to be very flexible and very good at prioritising tasks. And you need to be able to interrupt what you’re working on to deal with urgent issues, and then remember where you were up to when you get back to it :) Currently, we’re working on reviewing and improving many of our systems. My main on-going project at the moment is the new Chemical Inventory system in WebDB (IMB's database).

If you could switch jobs with someone at IMB, who would it be?

I wouldn’t want to swap jobs with anyone, I actually like mine.

What aspects of your role do you enjoy the most?

I like that I’m not stuck in front of a computer all day – I get to walk around doing hands on things a lot. I also really enjoy the problem-solving aspect – it’s nice to be involved in science even though I'm no longer a researcher myself. The thing I enjoy most is when I can fix someone’s problem and can see how what I’m doing directly helps people get their research done.

What places have you lived in?

I grew up in Canberra and went to University there. When I finished my PhD I moved to Vancouver, Canada, to do a post-doc at UBC. When I decided the research I was doing there wasn’t really what I wanted to do, I moved to Brisbane for a post-doc at SCMB and I’ve been here in Brisbane ever since.

What do you like to do in your spare time? 

I go SCUBA diving a lot at the moment. I’m currently the President of Unidive, the UQ diving club, and that pretty much ensures I don’t have any “spare time” left!