Saskia Budgett

Interviewed by Nanthana Gunathilagan

Dr. Saskia Budgett, a former UCLA Biology graduate and professional athlete, competed in rowing for Great Britain, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Transitioning to medicine, she started postgraduate studies at Saint George’s University of London and paused to pursue rowing full-time. Currently, Saskia conducts dementia research at Queen Mary University, focusing on education and training interventions to improve care quality. Her work, in collaboration with dementia organisations, aims to impact healthcare policy.

What is your role and have there been any challenging aspects?

During my pause in my medical degree I got in touch with Professor Claudia Cooper. It has been a really amazing experience being a research assistant with the DeNPRU team at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health. I work with Professor Claudia Cooper on workforce training in dementia. My research is important as dementia is a widespread condition which touches a lot of people’s lives. Right now I am doing a systematic review and then I will start my second year of postgraduate medicine in August.

I have been involved in research before but I have never done a systematic review so its all quite new to me. I am learning as I go along but Professor Claudia Cooper supports me and challenges all the people that work for her. The opportunity to take charge and lead a project is really exciting but it can have its challenging aspects.

What qualities do you think a researcher should have?

I think passion is really important because it requires quite a lot of individual work and so I think if you’re passionate about something that worked becomes very easy.  Attention to detail is also very important, I think in research you have to be really clinical about how you go about it. And and although it’s it’s individual work, there is also teamwork involved. So you need to be able to communicate and effectively to bring together different types of people.

What skills do you think are important to be innovative and entrepreneurial in science?
Passion really important and curiosity is really helpful because then you always have that desire to learn and desire to relearn. In science, one of the exciting things about it is it's continually developing and we're continually finding out new things. So I think being on top of the research and being curious is super important to provide the best quality care.

What influenced your decision to enter medical research?

I’m fascinated in science and helping people, that’s my main passion. Informing future policy is very motivating for me because that will have an effect on what I learn as a future physician, but also like what the quality of care is.

Why did you decide to participate in Visibility Matters?

It is really important to me to have visibility of queer people. When I was growing up in school there was not much visibility, especially for woman and lesbians. Having support and knowing you have allies around you is really important, you know you won’t be judged or ostracised because you love who you love. In some communities it’s a given but not always, and its definitely hard for people to come out in lots of situations. If everyone can be authentic, you’ll get the most out of your team. For LGBTQ and neurodiversity, if you feel you belong you are more likely to thrive.

What has surprised you about your role?

Nothing has particularly surprised me. The real positives of my role have been that everyone has been very supportive and its been a really nice environment to join. For me what’s nice about academic research is its quite flexible, you can work remotely or come in as you like. You also have some say in the direction your project is heading, I don’t think that’s guaranteed in a lot of jobs.