Profile

I live with my boyfriend in a very small flat in a pretty small town in the East of the UK near Peterborough. Where I live there is no train station and the buses don’t come very often and are really slow. So I have a little purple car that I have called Rattata because it is the exact same colour as the Pokemon!

As you might be able to tell, I’m a big geek. I love Pokemon and playing video games. I’ve never played Fortnite though- I’ve downloaded it but just not got around to playing it yet.

My favourite food is Chinese and I really love lemon chicken with egg fried rice. I could eat it all day every day and maybe I would if my boyfriend didn’t hate Chinese food!

My aim in life is to have a dog. Dogs are my favourite animals and my family have two dogs (they have two dogs, one cat and two guinea pigs). I really miss not having any pets around, although I don’t miss picking up dog poo!

My hobbies are running (I’m training for a half marathon at the moment to raise money for Cancer Research UK), reading, listening to my music (which I do a lot while running), playing video games playing 02 touch rugby, scuba diving and travelling.

I am a PhD researcher. This means I’m a student who goes to a university instead of a school. The qualification I am trying to get at the end of it, similar to SATS or GCSEs or A Levels is a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy). It is called a Doctor of Philosophy because it means you’re not a medical doctor (Doctor of Medicine) but something else. My PhD, for instance, is in engineering and microbiology. So although it is called a Doctor of Philosophy, it doesn’t have to be in philosophy but can be in any subject.

My PhD is different to school because I have no exams or lessons. Instead, PhD students have to write one giant piece of coursework, around 80,000-100,000 words, basically a book, about what experiments you have done and what you have learned. That’s a lot of writing! But I don’t mind because I hate exams! Also, PhDs are 3-4 years long. I think it’s plenty of time to write a book. I am in my 3^rd year and have 1 year left to go.

The research I am doing to get my PhD is all about drinking water. At the moment in the UK we have really good quality water but we use a lot of chemicals (e.g. chlorine) and do a lot of treatment (which costs people time and money) to get water from river water to tap water. I’m looking into how we could get the same quality of water but using other ways of treating it. For example, we could use UV light instead of chlorine. 

I’m building big loops of pipe (13m long), one which has water treated with no chemicals in and one which has water treated with chemicals in. I’m going to compare what microbiology, what creatures grow that can’t be seen by human eyes, in both of these pipes and see if there are any differences. But how can I count these creatures if I can’t see them? I use equipment called a “flow cytometer”. I use lasers to count the numbers of cells.

I really enjoy my work. I think it is really important for everyone in the UK to have safe, clean drinking water. In the future, some of the chemicals we use right now will have ran out. I’m trying to look at new ways of treating water that won’t run out.

Sampling Days (twice a fortnight)

Sampling Schedule

• 8-10:30am travel to experimental site
• 10:30-12:30pm take samples, basic analysis on site
• 1-2:30pm travel to laboratory
• 2:30-5pm analyse samples in the lab
• 5-7:30pm travel home

Tasks: take samples from experimental sites, do basic site analysis (e.g. chlorine, temperature, turbidity), read meters, record data on site, check everything is running correctly/solve any problems, do complex lab-based analysis, record results

Event Days

Teaching

• PhD Tutor with The Brilliant Club
• 2h slots once a fortnight (go to industry office after)

Conferences

• Discuss research with a poster or presentation
• 1 international per year, 2-3 UK per year

Training

• Usually at The University of Sheffield
• 2-3 per year

Tasks: explain my research to specialised and non-specialised audiences, network with other scientists and engineers, keep up to date with other research, improve and build on current skills

Paperwork Days

Office in Industry (all other available days)

• 7:45-8:30am travel to the office
• 4:30-5pm travel home from the office

Work from home (once a week)

• 8am start work
• 5:30pm finish work

Office in University (once a fortnight)

• 6-9:30am travel to University of Sheffield
• 3:30-6:30pm travel home from University of Sheffield

Tasks: writing literature reviews or thesis chapters, analysing preliminary results, catching up with emails, ensure my steering group and supervisors are caught up with my progress, apply to talk at conference, organising travel/calendar