Nora de Leeuw: ‘Some of my best PhD students weren’t that great at passing exams’

I didn’t intend to become a chemist. I intended to become a vet. But I decided, actually, chemistry was really interesting. Then I made a mistake and studied chemical engineering for a year, which I found was very little about chemistry. So, I changed completely and went into hotel and catering business management. I came to England, held a job and got a bit bored. So, I decided to do an Open University degree, and I went back into chemistry with physics.