• Question: what do u do for a living and why do u do it.

    Asked by 762cars46 on 21 Sep 2016.
    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 21 Sep 2016:

      I’m communications manager for our institute, which is part of Queen Mary University of London.
      We focus on cancer research and clinical trials; I manage our website, social media channels, and lots of other bits and bobs.
      I do it because I loved the people and projects going on while I studied my PhD here some years ago, and came back when the opportunity arose. As I have a science background, I can talk to all our researchers and they know I understand them (mostly!) and then I can try to share that in a way that’s understandable to more people.

      It’s important that our work is accessible to people, as a lot is publicly-funded, so we want to share all our good news wherever possible. Cancer is such a huge and complicated problem, but it can be encouraging to know work is ongoing, new treatments are being tested, and patients are surviving!

    • Photo: Katie Mahon

      Katie Mahon answered on 21 Sep 2016:

      I’m a mechanical design engineer for a company in Kenya. We make cookstoves for people to make their dinner on! Our product is more efficient so it saves the customer money every day and also produces less smoke so it’s healthier and better for the environment.
      I love being an engineer as you get to make things work better, and to improve people’s lives.

    • Photo: Joanna Bagniewska

      Joanna Bagniewska answered on 21 Sep 2016:

      I’m a Teaching Fellow in Zoology and Ecology at the University of Reading. I do fieldwork, I teach students, prepare courses, mark exams, organise study abroad projects and try to fit some of my own research in.
      I do this because I enjoy being a zoologist (interacting with wildlife and studying it in depth), while at the same time I like being around students, and I think lecturing is fun.

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 21 Sep 2016:

      I do research into whether we can see anything in the parts of the brain that are involved in hearing that might explain why people have hearing problems after noise exposure (going to loud concerts, listening to personal stereos and working in noisy environments). I do this because I have spent many years getting good at doing brain imaging to ask medical questions and this is one of the questions that someone has been given lots of money to ask – and so they hired me to do the job!

    • Photo: Shona Whittam

      Shona Whittam answered on 21 Sep 2016:

      I work in Radiotherapy Physics which involves planning patient’s cancer treatments, looking after the machines that deliver the treatments and doing measurements to ensure the patient receives the correct dose of radiation.

      I like being a Radiotherapy Physicist as it is very rewarding to help people with cancer but also there is a lot of variety to my job as I also do a lot of project work developing new interesting techniques.

    • Photo: Ian Hands-Portman

      Ian Hands-Portman answered on 22 Sep 2016:

      I look after our departments microscopes – electron microscopes and laser scanning microscopes ( called Confocal microscopes ) as well as the more familiar types. I have to train people how to use them, process samples and design experiments.
      We have people studying crop diseases, human diseases and designing new anti cancer and antibiotic drugs. I love working with microscopes – I get to see new things every day and the inner workings of cells displayed on the screen can be absolutely beautiful.

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