Profile
Fiona Grimson
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About Me:
I grew up in New Zealand and now I live in London with my partner and my two cats. I work as a medical statistician and in my spare time I love reading, cooking, and travelling.
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One thing that is unusual about me is that I have lived in lots of different places. I was born in England but I grew up in New Zealand and went to school and university there. I liked a lot of different things at school but ended up focussing on maths and statistics. I spent a year in Switzerland doing and internship and then I went to Seattle in the US to get a PhD and lived there for 5 years. After that I moved to London.
I love travelling and reading, experimenting with cooking and new recipes – I always like to be learning something new. My partner is from Argentina so I have been learning Spanish.
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My pronouns are:
She/her
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My Work:
I work as a medical statistician for a company that develops and manufactures new medicines. I am responsible for analysing data from clinical trials to see whether the new medicine works well and is safe for people to take.
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When a potential new medicine is discovered it goes through a long process to make sure it works well and is safe. The last step of this process is a clinical trial where volunteer patients are given either the new medicine or a placebo – something that looks like the new medicine but has no effect. Then we follow the patients carefully to see how much their symptoms improve and if they have any side effects. We can compare the patients who get the medicine to those that get the placebo to see exactly what the medicine does.
All of the information gets collected and stored as data, which statisticians analyse, summarise, and work with other experts to understand and interpret.
The analysis we do helps governments and doctors decide if the new medicine will be good for their patients or not.
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My Typical Day:
I work at home and I start work at 9am. I usually work till 5pm with a break for lunch and go for a walk. I am home alone all day but I don’t get too lonely as I have my two cats, and I spend a lot of time talking to my colleagues on Zoom or Teams.
After work I cook dinner and relax!
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During the day I have a mixture of meetings and just working at my computer. In meetings we mainly need to figure out what needs to be done and how we want to do it – who does what, when it should be due and so on. When I do my own work I might be typing up analysis plans or reports. There is a lot of team work as it’s a big project that takes a lot of people all doing different things to get it done.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would use it to help students learn about careers in medical research, through career fairs or something similar. It’s something I never knew about at school – if you like maths and you like biology and health care you don’t need to choose one or the other!
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Education:
I went to school in Auckland, New Zealand – through high school and also to Auckland University.
In high school up to the equivalent of A-levels I studied French, Geography, Maths, Statistics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry. At university I wanted to study town planning and geography at first, but I soon realised I liked maths and especially statistics the most. I got a bachelors and masters degree in statistics at the University of Auckland.
Next I went to the University of Washington, in Seattle USA, to do a PhD in statistics where I focussed on the applications of statistics to human genetics. -
Qualifications:
In New Zealand it’s different than in the UK – you do more subjects for example.
In Year 11 (GCSE) I did French, Maths, Geography, Science, History.
In Year 13 (A level) I did French, Geography, Maths, Statistics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry.Bachelor of Science (first class honours) in Maths and Statistics
Master of Science in Statistics
Doctorate (PhD) in statistics
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Work History:
During high school I worked at a book shop and I also would babysit sometimes.
During university I changed from the bookshop to the post office, still babysitting and also tutoring other students, and as a senior student giving tutorials and grading homework.
Between my masters and PhD I did an internship in Finance.After university my first job was as a medical statistician for a research company, and after 4 years there I moved to the company I’m at now, where I’ve been for 3 years.
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Current Job:
Medical Statistician
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Employer:
UCB Pharma
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
I hadn’t decided, I just knew I liked maths, science, and health.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
I would love to be a museum curator
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Lizzo
What's your favourite food?
Cheese
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
See my family more, do more sports and exercise, swap some work for volunteering and helping people
Tell us a joke.
Why did the student get upset when the teacher called her average? It was a ‘mean’ thing to say
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