Noa Leach was a Clare Hall MPhil student from 2020-21 when she first met Dr Stasa Stankovic, then pursuing her PhD also at Clare Hall. Noa is now a science journalist for BBC Science Focus and recently published an article on Stasa’s research–a wonderful example of the ongoing collaboration and community at Clare Hall!

Noa’s article explores the work of Stasa’s team to develop a method to predict a woman’s natural fertility window. The ability to determine the menopausal age can then be addressed with a fertility drug to potentially delay menopause, another project that Stasa’s team is working on.

“Storytelling is the best way for removing the veil of taboo from topics that we still struggle to talk about,” Stasa said. “My favourite storytelling sessions happen during ‘girls’ nights’. This one was about infertility, how uninformed we are about our own reproductive health and how besides IVF and egg freezing, we don’t really have much choice to do anything about it. It happened at Clare Hall – in the living room of Leslie Barnett household; luckily both Noa and I were there.”

Years after first meeting at Clare Hall, Noa and Stasa formalised these conversations through Noa’s article in the BBC.

“Clare Hall was a brilliant place for meeting researchers across the sciences and arts. There was a point where you realised that, by starting up a conversation with anyone around you, you could learn about all kinds of fascinating research happening in Cambridge,” Noa said.

We wish both Noa and Stasa the best in their future endeavours!