A career rarely unfolds in a straight line. Mine began in France, curved sharply north to Scotland, continued east to England, stretched all the way to Australia — and then found its way back to Bordeaux with a new purpose entirely.
In 2002, I enrolled at Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen, Scotland, completing a BSc in Biological Sciences (2002–2004) followed by an MSc in Instrumental Analysis Sciences (2004–2005). Studying in Scotland was a deliberate choice: the research culture, the rigour of the programmes, and the proximity to world-class environmental science institutes made Aberdeen an exceptional place to train. Besides, I had a strong incentive to improve my English and discover new people and traditions.
Not every data consultant starts in a spreadsheet. Some start in a field, pushing gas-sampling chambers into the ground at dawn, or in a molecular biology lab, running gel electrophoresis late into the evening. This is the story of how a career in research science became the foundation for a new chapter in data.
My scientific career began in earnest with a MSc thesis on Multiplex Terminal RFLP (M-TRFLP) — a molecular fingerprinting method for characterising soil microbial communities with high resolution. That early work, co-authored with Brajesh K. Singh and published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, laid the methodological groundwork for years of subsequent research.