Briefly, tell us about your background and career up to this point?
I’ve been working in impact and research since 2010, first with a small consultancy working for organisations including skills bodies, councils, charities, multinational companies and perhaps most excitingly the Olympic Games organising committee! Since then, I’ve been Impact Manager for the Sciences at the University of York and Impact Lead at the Alan Turing Institute.
Do you have any current projects that you’d like to tell us about?
We’re taking a first pass at putting together the Faculty’s REF Impact Case Study submission, so I’m working with researchers across FoLSM to understand what they do, what difference it makes, what difference it’s going to make, and how we can help! It’s exciting, particularly because the REF’s only part of the picture; this exercise means that I get to see and understand a really broad range of research projects and impacts across the Faculty.
What do you do with your time outside academia/work?
I show off, essentially; I sing and act with York Opera and directed their last show – in a King’s alumni moment, Gilbert & Sullivan is basically my favourite thing to do! If I can’t be on stage, I’ll gladly watch other people being on stage instead. Otherwise, I like cooking, I’m an indifferent but enthusiastic badminton player and a keen boardgamer, and I’m currently enjoying the relative success of Sunderland AFC (hope that hasn’t jinxed them!)
What are you most looking forward to this year?
Meeting as many researchers as I can, finding out as much as possible about them, and supporting them to change the world!
What is your proudest accomplishment?
My daughter. But professionally speaking, probably devising the Alan Turing Institute’s first ever Impact Framework, it’s challenging trying to develop something like that for so complex and wide-ranging an organisation, and I’m really proud that they got something actually usable.
What is your favourite thing about working at King’s?
The people, every one of whom so far has been brilliant. But also the work – this is my first time working for an institution with such a focus on medicine, and I’m beginning to see just how many ways we’re making life better for people. It’s really exciting!
What is your favourite part of your role?
See above! I love meeting incredibly clever people, listening to them explain the incredibly clever things they do, and then working with them to understand how that does, could and will make the world a better place. I get to do that most days. It’s a good role.
QUICK-FIRE:
Favourite book: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Or something by Sir Terry Pratchett or Ben Aaronovitch
Favourite cuisine: Jamaican
Describe yourself in three words… Enthusiastic, passionate, Yorkshireman
The quality you value most in others: Impossible to choose between cleverness and kindness.