Profile

My CV

• Education:

  My first secondary school was St Peter’s school in Huntingdon. I moved from there just as I finished the year 9 exams and moved to Prince William School, Oundle. Here I completed my GCSE and A-level exams in 2010.
  I realised I loved chemistry so attended the University of Reading for my MChem degree and graduated in 2014. I had excellent teachers, mentors and colleagues but new I wanted to keep learning and explore somewhere new.
  I wanted to work with medicines, looking at them from a chemistry viewpoint so chose to apply to PhD programme at University College London which focused on improving the side effects of a drug used for a rare lung disease. I was accepted in 2014 and completed in 2018 after 4 fabulous years of learning about the topic as well as how to manage the project and myself!

• Qualifications:

  GSCE: Biology, chemistry, physics, PE, Art, maths, English literature, English language, French, Religious education, Citizenship,
  AS level: Physics
  A-level: Biology, Chemistry, Maths
  MChem: Chemistry
  PhD: Pharmaceutical Chemistry

• Work History:

  My first job was washing pots and pans in a pub kitchen, then I was a school cleaner, then a waitress at a pub which I did whilst still at school, during weekends/holidays.
  My first full time job was testing the components of hydrogen fuel cell cars which I did for a year between my university degree. It was lots of fun but I felt it was quite repetitive and I didn’t want to do it forever. Once I finished my degree I worked in the teaching labs for a couple of months, sorting out many years worth of reactions and equipment and helping design lab experiments for students at university and at schools.
  I then moved to London for my PhD degree trying to make a drug used for a lung disease have fewer side effects. As part of this I went to Washington DC for 3 months working in a pharmaceutical company. This was the type of work I thought I always wanted to do but after ~2 years I realised I wanted to work in sustainability and tried to take opportunities to change fields.
  Having finished my PhD I worked for a friend as a virtual assistant before taking a 6 month job making eye drops which allowed me to travel to Uganda and Nepal training others on how to make the eye drops I created.
  I then worked for a small start-up company in London making nanomedicines which reduces side effects of treatments like that used for cancer. During the pandemic we switched to making nanomedicines for COVID treatment.
  I knew during my second degree that I cared deeply about sustainability and reducing the effects of climate change. I then moved to Manchester for a job which would allow me to work on this directly and have been happily here ever since!

• Current Job:

  Currently I work as a polymer chemist on sustainable formulations. Most of my work is in a lab, mixing solutions together and making new molecules that are either not known to science yet, or I’m trying to make them do something that hasn’t been done yet. I work as part of 30 other scientists all looking at polymer materials whether it’s for bottles, building houses or wind turbines or credit cards. I also do a lot of work trying to make sure our research doesn’t have harmful effects on the environment (increasing recycling, reducing what we’re using, using better equipment).

• Employer:

  I work at the University of Manchester in the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub.