Familiar with research

It will soon be Christmas, and it's time to see the family again. There are many of my relatives that I see only once or twice a year, and it seems to get harder and harder to explain them what I am doing. Some of them are very interested in what I am doing, although they do not understand everything. I remember at the last party I were at in the little village where my family comes from, where one of the neighbours came to me and told me she was sooo happy that I would start my ph.d. ("doctor degree" in Norwegian) as she used to suffer with some health problems that she hoped I would be able to help her with. Well, although I have tried to coin the term Earth Doctor for those who work with renewable energy research, I'm afraid my skills in materials science will not help her much :-)

It's a challenge to explain what we do to people that are not working with research, but we should welcome this challenge as an opportunity for ourselves to understand more about our own work and why we are doing it.