Profile

I grew up on the East Coast in the US and did my undergrad there. I’ve always been interested in chemistry and maths, and started at uni studying Chemical Engineering as a result. However, some great hands-on experiences in a research lab got me hooked on molecular biology. I added a degree in Bio, and haven’t looked back. After graduation, I knew that I wanted to see something else in the world–either in sunny California or somewhere else in the world. I took an opportunity to pursue a PhD in Biochemistry in the UK even though it wasn’t sunny or warm because it seemed like a great solution. 10 years on from finishing my PhD, I haven’t left! Now, I do research into how we can use drugs to prevent cancer, and I also teach as a university lecturer.

I’m a competitive person, and although I used to get my sports fix through soccer/football and track and field (athletics) when I lived in the US, these days my main outlet for exercise is competitive cycling, both IRL and in virtual / online competitions.

In work, my time is divided between doing research and teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses in biological and biomedical sciences.

On the research side, I am the leader of a small research group that includes a PhD student, a post-doctoral researcher (someone doing research as a job after getting a PhD), a research technician (same as a post-doc but without a PhD), and myself.  Together, the group does experiments using cell lines and disease models to try and discover new things about the causes of cancer. Any new knowledge that we uncover helps us develop new plans of attack on cancer cells. Hopefully, some of our work will get published in scientific journals and lead to clinical trials for cancer prevention in humans. We also present our findings at scientific conferences, talking with other scientist and clinicians about the potential use of our findings.  A few times, I have also had the opportunity to engage with policy makers at Holyrood.

On the teaching side, I teach undergraduate students (mostly 3rd and 4th years) and Masters-level students within my university department. The topics are fairly wide-ranging, but mostly focused on aspects of human health and on the underlying biology and chemistry that allows our bodies to function normally. In some modules, I teach about different diseases (mostly cancer, diabetes, and liver disease) and how they are caused, identified by a GP, and current ways in which they are treated.

I have four young kids (two boys and twin girls), so there isn’t really a ‘typical’ day. Something is always going on! I’m an early riser in the morning, and usually plan to do some exercise first thing. Breakfast is oatmeal with lots of coffee, probably supplemented with whatever cereal dregs the kids leave behind.

After the school and nursery runs, I’m into Uni for a mix of research and teaching that depends on the time of year / term-time or not. I have won funding to cover three main research projects at the moment. They are inter-related but use slightly different experimental techniques to address different main questions. To move these along, I do a lot of experiments myself. Luckily, I also have a ton of help from the people in my research team–a PhD student, a post-PhD (called a post-doc) professional researcher, and a research technician. You can see some of them working and/or presenting our findings at conferences in the photos.

Doing research actually takes quite a lot of planning and preparation. You need to figure out the main research question you are interested in examining, break this big idea down into smaller components that are testable, and then design experiments to actually find out the answer to your hypothesis. I spend a lot of my time doing these thinking / planning / strategising steps. But (hopefully) there’s still enough time left after all of that to do experiments with the group. That’s the best part!

I’ll have lunch at some point, usually a peanut butter and banana sandwich with more coffee. Often, it will be a ‘working’ lunch where I’ll try to take in a scientific talk or catch up with members of the research team.

At the end of the day, I cycle home, make or re-heat something for dinner, and then help grab the kids from nursery/after-school. Then it’s the bedtime bath/shower run, maybe a nighttime online cycle race, some wind down time, and then bed. Rinse and repeat!