Meet the scientists!

My CV

School:

Eldean Lower School (1990-1994), Ryelands Middle School (1994-1999) and Duston Upper School (1999-2004). I did A-Levels in Chemistry, Biology and History (I was rubbish at history!) and AS Level Geography

University:

University of Leeds (2004 to date)

Work History:

I studied for my Masters In Chemistry (2004-2008) at the University of Leeds and now I working towards my PhD here too!

Employer:

University of Leeds

Current Job:

PhD Researcher

Photo:

Katie Marriott

Ugh now you kids start asking question I could answer :oP

Favourite Thing: Discovering new things that no-one else has seen or discovered before. It’s very exciting when you do a reaction and something happens that you don’t expect. The hard thing is then to work out why that happened!

Me and my work

I work in the lab reacting different chemicals to see how the first life on Earth may have evolved.

When the Earth was formed there were a lot of different chemicals that were not around that we have in our biology. One way they could have got to Earth is via meteorites. I use different chemicals that you can get from meteorites and react them together to see how these molecules could have evolved into our biology. Because some of the material I use can oly come from meteorites it shows we are all aliens!

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My Typical Day

I don’t really have a typical day but I am usually in the lab doing reactions and analysing them.

I get to work at about 10am and I will either be analysing reactions that I had on over night or setting some reactions to run that night. I might have to teach in the Undergraduate labs, or even help out with a School that may be visiting the University. I might have a chat with my supervisor about the work I am doing or what I would like to do next.

My favourite part is being in the lab! This makes everyday different as each experiment I run is different to the others I have done previously. although i also really enjoy teaching people about science whether it’s in the University or to the general public.

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What I'd do with the money

I would love to have a Space Day where we can look at different aspects of Science that goes on in Space.

There are lots of different ways you can look at Space, and I would love to explore that with a Space Camp. Astronomy is the obvious science related with space but there are also fascinating things in other subject areas such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, geology and geography. There’s so much going on up there!

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My Interview

How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

Scientist, Friendly, Excited

What is the most fun thing you've done?

Rowed a viking boat on a lake made from a meteorite impact in Sweden!

If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

1) That my PhD doesn’t have to end. I love my work and I’m really sad I only have about 10 months left. 2) That I could win the lottery so Ii didn’t have to work for money and I could do what every job I fancied and 3) I didn’t have to get any older.

What did you want to be after you left school?

I always wanted to be a Pathologist or a Doctor

Were you ever in trouble in at school?

I was always a good girl!

What's the best thing you've done as a scientist?

Travelled. My PhD has allowed me to go to lots of conferences in different countries. I have met a lot of interesting people and learnt a lot of stuff about Astrobiolgy