Ileana Rau

Associate Professor, Universitatea Politehnica Bucharest, Romania; Executive Director, Research Centre for Environmental Protection and Ecological Technologies
Country of birth: Romania

Educational background: PhD Chemistry, Universitatea Politehnica Bucharest, Romania; DSc Physics, Université d'Angers, France

A typical work day
A typical day or week includes conducting lectures for students and research activities through projects contracted, as well as mentoring and supervising students. A part of my time is devoted to writing research proposals in order to assure funds for future studies as well as doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships.

What I enjoy most
I enjoy my entire job: the teaching part because I have to update my courses every year or prepare new courses, which gives me the opportunity to read and to enrich my knowledge; the research part because it provides me a lot of nice moments when I solve new challenges and form young researchers. I spend a lot of time talking with students, checking their progress, and planning future research work.

Words of wisdom
Combining research and teaching is allowed only for select people: they have the power to go further when the results obtained are not what they expected, they have the capacity to see behind the ordinary results, they have fun when they succeed in their research, and they have the joy to
teach and to transfer their knowledge to young people, who, finally, will continue the work.