January 29, 2025

Elodie Chabrol: Neuroscientist and Her Cat Plume

Meet Elodie Chabrol and her cat Plume.

Elodie Chabrol didn’t plan to become a neuroscientist, but a simple misunderstanding set her on an unexpected path. She wanted to be a teacher, but when university advisors told her that getting a PhD was the “easiest” way to become a teacher-researcher, she went for it. Along the way, she fell in love with science. Now, Elodie is not only a neuroscientist but also a passionate science communicator, making complex discoveries more accessible to everyone.

In our conversation, she unpacks the challenges of explaining science, the gender dynamics in research, and the thrill of embracing the unknown. She also shares big plans for 2025, wisdom on keeping cats healthy (courtesy of her nearly 20-year-old cat, Plume), and the wild story of how Plume once got caught up in a forensics case. Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered about the genetics behind your cat’s quirks, Elodie has some fun facts for you.

Life as a neuroscientist

m a neuroscientist. I was a researcher for 12 years after my PhD. I work in neuroscience on epilepsy. And after almost 8 years, I moved to being a freelancer in science communication. So basically, my job is to help scientists share their research and their stories in lots of different ways — it could be with podcasts, training, or hosting events. I’m the international director for the Pint of Science Festival, which is a 3-day festival around the world, from Australia to the US. We have researchers going to pubs and cafes, talking about their research. It’s really cool.

I have loved science since high school. When I was at university, I wanted to be a teacher. I went into research on a “misunderstanding” because I went to the university and I asked what’s the best way to be a teacher, and they said if you want, you can be a teacher-researcher — you do a Ph.D, and it’s easier than going to do high school teacher. I believed them, so I ended up during my master, entering a lab a research lab, and I really fell in love with science and research.

After my PhD, normally, we go abroad often and do research. I was in London during my research, and then one day, I received an email from the Pint of Festival saying, “We are starting.” So the festival didn’t exist yet. I also took part in the creation of the festival at the very beginning. I loved it, and I created the French branch, and then I’ve been expanding it seven since. I think it’s my love for communicating and teaching that then met science. So the science communication, it’s communicating science in any way — it could be writing blogs, writing books — I’m not very much into writing and more into the oral kind of things, like podcasts, events where either you meet people in cafes, in conferences, really all sorts of events. You can have podcasts as well and some content on the internet. Science communication is very broad. It’s basically communicating science — it could be to students or a very general public. You don’t get bored because there are so many different ways to do it.

The Challenge of Explaining Science

I think that, often, for scientists, the complicated part is that we want the details to be shared. And the problem is that the more we get into the details, sometimes it’s too complicated, it’s too technical. But as scientists often want to keep them, that’s the tricky part of trying to be general, not giving too many details that would be just too complicated, but also explaining enough not to be too general. So that’s the right balance to find.

And to be sure that you’re explaining real research, you need something interesting, something real, but not too detailed. Like the film Don’t Look Up, the moment when Leonardo DiCaprio is on TV is exactly that: he gets completely lost in details. Then, the big message is a bit lost because he’s there with his details, which are very sciencey and no one understands. So I think that would be the trick to stay true and precise, but also remove any unnecessary details that would completely get the message completely lost.

Sometimes, you have several layers — you could be very general and then you can dive into. And sometimes the beauty of it is that if you’re good enough at explaining the general layer with like not too many details, and then really dive into details as soon as you bring them one at a time, and you don’t go like full detail from the beginning because anyone would be completely lost. Even scientists, people think that scientists know everything, and often people are like, “You’re a scientist, you should know…” and ask me a physics question. I explained that I’m a neuroscientist and that I don’t know much about neuroscience. I know things about epilepsy on a specific epilepsy. But even in neuroscience, I don’t know tons of stuff. But in the general public mind, a scientist knows everything about everything. So they ask you like physics questions and that kind of thing. And it’s not what we know. So even sometimes, when discussing science with scientists, you have to make sure you transform the way you talk because it could be too detailed. Not everyone knows your vocabulary, your jargon, and your details about the things you’re working on. For me, physics, astrophysics, and chemistry are completely new worlds.

Women in Science: Breaking Barriers

It’s very sad because, in biology, we’re lucky to have a lot of women from the beginning because it’s attracting a lot of girls. When I did my PhD, we were probably 8 women out of 10 PhDs. It was like 80% of us. But then, the more you go up, the fewer women you see. And often, most of the bosses are gonna be guys, so it’s gonna be reversed — we’re gonna go from 80% of the population to 10% of the population. Because it’s very competitive, it’s sometimes an all-school boys club kind of thing. So sometimes it’s a bit harsh to be a woman in that world because they are favoring, like- they are still preferring to give like opportunities to men sometimes just because it’s the ways they’ve always done.

” I think that would be the trick to stay true and precise, but also remove any unnecessary details that would completely get the message completely lost.

Embracing the Unknown in Science

The beauty of science and the very scary part is that you’re a bit like an explorer. You’re going to places where people have never been. So, it’s not something you control because you may be super smart. You may have read all the articles and formed the super cool hypothesis that might be the right idea, but you might be completely wrong because it’s something else you didn’t think about. So it’s true that you’re jumping into the unknown. In a way, the cool thing when you’ve done research and then you go to another job is that you’re super used to being adaptable, like knowing the unknown and learning many things.

But it’s true that you’re discovering some land that hasn’t been discovered yet. So you’re thinking, okay, this might look like that. And then you go, and actually, it might be what you think, or it might be looking completely different because you didn’t know about a parameter. It’s going to be like, “Oh, I’m going to go somewhere, and it’s going to be very sunny, very warm.” And then you arrive, and it’s completely like ice caps and everything. It’s just because you didn’t think of whatever. But the really cool part of it is that you’re discovering so many things that it’s true and completely uncontrollable.

” But the really cool part of it is that you’re discovering so many things that it’s true and completely uncontrollable.

Big Goals for 2025

2025 is a very big year because it’s the year my cat is turning 20, which is an incredibly big number for her. So I’m thinking about what I will do for her birthday. But apart from that, it’s the first year I have a bit of visibility. I think in 2025, I’m going to relax because when I start the year, I don’t know exactly who my clients will be for the full year.

I love the job because it brings so many different projects and so many amazing people that you can meet and work with, but it’s a very unsure kind of work where you’re not always, you don’t always know starting the year what’s gonna happen. And it’s the first year I actually have; I would say 90% of my job has already been decided. It’s the year I can relax and be like, okay, kind of, I can plan what’s gonna happen, and I will be way more relaxed. It’s 20th birthday for Plume and relaxing for me.

Tips for Keeping Cats Healthy (Like Plume!)

I have two of them. The first one is love, definitely. I got her from a cat refuge. It’s love, as you can see.

And the second one, I’m really quite sure it helps, is that when she was around 10, I had a very bad -backache. My boyfriend at the time bought me a heating mat to put on the bed for relaxation of the muscles of the back. But this little one, she decided that it would become her mat. So it’s been 10 years. She’s sleeping on the heating mat. Now she has two, one on the bed, one on the sofa. And it’s really cool because now I’ve bought animal heating mats and you can put like 24-hour thing. It’s gently warming, you know, it’s not like cooking them. I think it really helps because it means that she doesn’t have to have her little body use energy to keep warm during the day, especially in winter. She’s warm and healthy.

For food, she always has a little bowl of dry food — it’s always ready, but she eats a lot of wet food. She eats wet food, to be honest. Before then, I was regulating at the beginning — she had breakfast and dinner. And now that she’s older, since she’s 18 years old, it’s complete anarchy at home. It’s food whenever she asks. Because she’s old. I’m not going to say no. Now, she gets whatever she wants. She’s a good cat because she never eats like a crazy gluten. I could have dry food there ready, and she would go to that whenever she’s a bit hungry, and there is no wet food at night. Apart from that, nothing special.

How Plume Found a Forever Home

I think I’m lucky. I have so many anecdotes about Plume, but one of them is that when I got her, I lost my cat. I was 23 when I got her, and I lost the cat that I had my whole life from when I was 6. I told my friends from the cat association, “If you have a cat, know, let me know, but maybe not now, but let me know.” And one day, she called me, and she told me, “I have the cats. We have a mama cat in the association. We got her from outside. She gave birth in a garage, and all the kittens have already been adopted, but there is this little kitten that no one wants. Do you want to come and have a look and meet her?” And I met her, and it was love at first sight.

She was really, really cute, but it’s true. She was half the size of the other ones. And I got her, and no one wanted her because everyone said she would be weak, but she’s 20 now. So, I guess the size doesn’t always matter when it comes to that. She’s not very big, she’s 3 kilos, so it’s still a very small cat. She’s sleeping a lot. She likes comfy places. She’s not gonna hunt mice or birds outside in the garden. She’s looking at them from afar, but she’s not gonna do anything. She’s sleeping a lot, but yeah, she’s good.

I wanted a male cat and didn’t want a black and white. I ended up adopting a black and white female. It’s exactly why I didn’t want it, because the cat I had before was a male, and I wanted a male as well; he was black and white. So I didn’t want the exact look like him. I wanted a different cat to love the new cat as himself or herself, not “replacing” the other cat. So I thought about a name for boy cats, but I didn’t really think about a name for a little girl cat. Then I came up with Plume, which means feather in English. And I was like, why not? But I think it’s quite a common name in France for cats.

We got her just in the middle of the nap so that she might have been a bit more scruffy than normal, but she looks really like a baby. And she’s still playing, so it’s really cool. She is like going down the stairs, two steps by two steps, running. And it’s like, okay, you’re supposed to be old, not run away around the house like that, but she does, and it’s pretty cool to see.

Plume’s Forensics Fiasco

So the big anecdote I have around Plume is that we got the house burgled one day in London. So it was quite negative, very sad, blah, blah, blah. So they sent the forensics police. And they started with the powder to try to find prints around the house. They tried the kitchen because they started entering by the kitchen. And then, with my flatmates, we entered the kitchen with the forensics that were working. They finished, and they said, “Sadly, we couldn’t find any prints to like to try to match and find who burgled you.” We saw the kitchen counter and we started having the biggest laugh of the last year, probably because Plume wasn’t allowed on it. Normally she should have stayed off it. And we never saw her on it. But then we saw all the little white paw prints on the kitchen counter that basically the forensics, so the forensics managed to get with the powder. So we looked at Plume, and we were like, okay, now the forensics told us that you go on the counter when you’re not supposed to. And I think the police thought we were losing it because we were like all laughing, looking at that. Because we would have never known because she was really careful. She was never there when we were in the house. So she was never busted, but the forensics busted her.

Cats and Genetics: Fun Facts About Cats

I said I was a neuroscientist, and I’m actually a geneticist. I did neurogenetics. So I started doing genetics, and then I went to neuroscience. And there is a really cool thing in genetics with cats is that the brown and black are both on chromosome X. So males have one X, and females have two Xs. That’s why, normally, the calico cats are white, black, and brown and can be only females. That’s a really cool fact about cats and genetics. For the colors, it’s quite cool when you see a tri-color, like white, black, and brown,— it’s a female. Genetically, it has to be a female.

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