Profile

My background

I was born in the midlands and moved to Kent when i was 11 after my parents divorced, and i have a complicated family, with half siblings and step parents. Neither of my parents have a university degree and my mum was expelled from school at 15 years old, and i was the first on my mums side of the family to go to university, let alone get a PhD!

Education

I went to a Grammar school in Kent and did my A levels in Physics, Chemistry and Maths and as a result got a place at the Royal Veterinary College to study Veterinary Medicine.

Vet school was amazing, but i found the first 2 years extremely difficult, and didn’t get very good grades (in fact i almost failed my first year), so decided to take a year out to study Medical Physics and Bioengineering at UCL to have a break and experience a different subject. This gave me a new enthusiasm for vet school and i returned to finish and graduated in 2011 as a Vet.

The people i met at vet school are still some of my closest friends, even though we are now scattered all over the world doing various jobs.

Volunteering

I love helping people start their new lives as families when they have babies, which is why i volunteer as a breastfeeding peer supporter in my local NHS trust. In this role i get to sit with new parents and listen to their worries whilst supporting them to feed their babies in whichever way works best for them. It is extremely rewarding and i have recently been nominated as “volunteer of the year” in my local NHS trust, which i am very proud of.

Some fun facts about me

• I did rhythmic gymnastics as a child and won 3 gold and 3 bronze medals as a local level.
• I did my grade 1 ballet exam at the age of 30 just to prove that i could!
• I taught Lindy Hop (swing dance) at a big national festival and even danced on live TV once.
• I came 4th place in “Miss Vintage” vintage fashion pageant in 2015.
• I have a Grade 8 qualification in Group Musical Theatre and have performed in local theatre productions of Chicago, Sister Act and Sweet Charity.
• My favourite film is “Singin’ in the Rain” – it never gets old.

And if you are wondering…St John’s bakery in Covent Garden do THE BEST chocolate doughnuts in London. No contest!

After a few years working as a vet, i realised that there were so many things about the world, medicine, people and animals that we just don’t understand, and i wanted to be someone who looked for those answers, so i applied for a PhD and entered into the world of research.

Since then i haven’t looked back. I spent 9 years in the Advanced X-ray Imaging Group at UCL where my research involved developing a new way of using x-rays to see inside of objects called “Phase contrast imaging”. In a normal x-ray like you get at a hospital, we can see your bones because bones are really good at stopping (or absorbing) x-rays, so an x-ray image is basically a shadow. However, when x-rays travel through your body, they also change direction a teeny tiny amount (refraction), and if we can work out what that change in direction is we can learn new things about what is inside of you! Phase contrast imaging detects these tiny changes in direction as x-rays travel through your body.

I have been at the University of East London since 2024 and am finding my feet again with research, however hope to be able to pick up my x-ray research again shortly.

Although research and lecturing are my main jobs, working at a university gives me the freedom to do so many other amazing things like science communication and working with schools.

My day is always unpredictable (and also chaotic), because i never quite know what i am going to be asked to do at the last minute! Equally, science is famously unpredictable, so sometimes, even the best planned days can go wrong very quickly.