Profile

I coordinate all the processes and expert advice we need to ensure we make good decisions on who gets the money, and I make sure that once we’ve given it out that it’s spent wisely. If there are new big science projects on the horizon, often they are too expensive for one country to afford. So I go to meetings with funding representatives from all the other interested countries (sometimes in very nice places!) and we work together to figure out how we’re going to get the project funded and built. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes, in parallel to the scientists doing all the design and technical work.

When I’m in the office I usually get in between 9-9.30, make a cup of tea, spend some time reading and responding to email and then get stuck into my work for the day. I usually either go to the canteen for lunch, or go for a run, or into town, then back to work until 5.30-6ish. On a typical day I’ll have one or two meetings with colleagues to talk about work issues. Quite often I’m off travelling, either to one of the other STFC sites, or to a university, or for meetings abroad. This year I’ve been to Pisa, Bonn, CERN (the particle physics lab where the LHC is, near Geneva) and Santiago de Compostela.