BrainCast · Sussex Neuroscience Society

The Twists and Turns of Academic Journeys | What's Going on at Sussex | Dr Andrew Penn

·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

One paper in Nature led Dr. Penn to relocate and pivot his entire research direction.

BrainCast brings Dr. Andrew Penn from Sussex University into a relaxed campus interview. The conversation starts with the familiar icebreaker about which brain region he would be, and he answers with a joke choice, the hippocampus, before offering a more scientific one, the pre-Botzinger complex. From there, the episode turns to his academic path. A lot of time goes into fellowships, what they are for, how long they tend to last, and why moving between labs can matter when a researcher wants to build skills or move a project ahead. Penn also talks about his time in Bordeaux. That section helps show how postdoctoral work can look in practice, especially when short-term funding is really about mobility and longer funding can function more like a postdoctoral job. The host keeps pressing on the basics. They talk through whether a fellowship is a stepping stone, a skills-building break, or simply another way to be paid while contributing to a lab. The tone stays loose. It feels like two people thinking out loud about academic life instead of trying to turn it into a polished success story. The episode does not rush past the detours. It moves between Sussex and France, teaching and research, and the practical realities that shape a scientist's working life. The pre-Botzinger complex is described as a brainstem rhythm generator that controls breathing. A small, playful prompt opens onto a bigger conversation about research, study, and the way careers actually move. The closing stretch comes back to the same idea. The episode ends on the value of keeping questions coming.

As heard by us

A clear look at how academic research careers actually move.

BrainCast spends most of this conversation on the practical side of an academic career: Sussex, fellowships, lab moves, and the many ways people end up explaining what they do.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how a research career gets built, one move at a time.

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