James
Phipps-Tan

About me

​

I grew up in suburban Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. I liked many subjects at school but biology 'was my thing' - reading dinosaur books, going down taxonomy rabbitholes on Wikipedia, admiring all the critters in my family garden were things I liked doing without needing anyone to tell me to. So, I decided to study Biology, being lucky enough to do so at Imperial College London and then the Université de Lausanne. I focused on genetics and genomics, seeing that genes were 'principles' guiding how the living things I admire live and evolve. Now, I am doing a PhD in Tübingen, Germany, where I use perhaps the most harmless animals in the world - fruit flies - to better characterise the environmental and genetic factors governing gene expression variability. Check out my scientific research to find out what I mean. ;)

​​

I am also fond of writing! I get a kick out of laying out the myriad thoughts in my head and transforming them into a stream of punchy, concise and meaningful words. I'm an eclectic guy so I don't just write about science, but about history, cultures, movies, my hobbies and more. I hope they are as enjoyable reads for you as they are enjoyable writes for me! ​