Get to know Farhan Khan aka the London bloke
One of the three new faces at Environmental Risk
As a part of starting up the new strategic research initiative Environmental Risk, as well as the new M.Sc. in Environmental Risk, three new staff members have been employed. A formal announcement of the hires has been made here. However, as we would also like to introduce and welcome the three additions to the staff in a more personal way, we have interviewed each of them. In the following Farhan Khan will be presented.
Say hello to Farhan. A guy who grew up in London, attended King’s College London for his undergraduate and doctoral studies, and has taken a three-year Post-doc at Natural History Museum of London. In other words; a real London bloke. However, Farhan is also a traveller, a guy who likes to see the world: “I like trying new things; visiting new places or gaining new experiences. There is a buzz that comes from doing something cool for the first time”.
This buzz has taken Farhan around the world. To Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, where he had a one-year Post-doc between his doctoral studies at King’s College and his Post-doc at Natural History Museum. To Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, where he has been working for the last year, and of course here to Roskilde University, where he will start his assistant professorship in Environmental Risk at the first of September.
The buzz also took Farhan to Morocco, where he spent a summer teaching English after his undergraduate studies. A trip, which started a life’s ambition: To score a goal on every continent (Though he is a bit hesitant about Antarctica): “Whilst travelling I found myself playing a street game of football. A few years later, during my PhD, I visited the University of California, Berkeley and found a local game to join in with. In both these I scored goals, so I thought about the other continents. At conferences, I actively try to set up collaborations with researchers from Asia, South America and Australia, but so far I’m stuck on 3 continents”.
But back to Farhan’s studies and career: Having been interested in biology from a young age, Farhan thought it seemed like a good idea to study this subject at undergraduate level. However, the fact that he later got into aquatic toxicology was not in the scheme of things from the beginning: “How I got into aquatic toxicology…really by accident…in the third year of undergraduate we had a lab project to complete. I had lined up a project in parasitology, but that year I also got a new tutor. I introduced myself to him, and the introductory conversation lasted for 4 hours (!), in which he showed me around the lab and discussed his research interests. After that he said: “So do you want to do the project?” and I was too embarrassed to explain that I’d only come round to introduce myself. I ended up cancelling the parasitology project and did one on silver toxicity to daphnia magna. I enjoyed it and got a good grade, so I have kind of just carried on. The same tutor was also my PhD supervisor later on and things have really just snowballed through post-doc positions. Fortunately, I really enjoy my work, so things worked out well”.
Today Farhan is mainly working with trace metals in aquatic environment and its effect on aquatic organisms. He explains, that this topic encompasses a range of different areas such as the effects of different exposure scenarios, routes of uptake and organism specific responses. The field is also expanding to look at what happens when there is more than one metal present in the environment (so called mixture toxicity), as well as at the potential effects of metal containing nanoparticles.
The subject, which he is most fascinated by, is the metal detoxification strategies, which some organisms employ to negate metal toxicity: “I find it very fascinating that an organism can induce proteins to bind metals or cycle them into inorganic granules and that these systems are linked is really quite interesting. This was quite a big part of my PhD studies and allowed me to learn a lot of new techniques”.
And how did all of this lead Farhan towards Environmental Risk? Farhan tells me, that he through a previous project is familiar with the work of some of the Environmental Risk group and really enjoyed meeting and working with them. Also, he finds that the inter-disciplinary nature of the group makes this position exciting: “I hope Environmental Risk and RUC in general will be a great place to continue developing as a scientist. I look forward to be working in a vibrant, cross discipline environment. And also, I look forward to the opportunity to do some teaching, which will be new to me.