Profile

I joined Oxford University as an Undergraduate in 2005 and never left. I still keep in touch with my old college (Magdalen) and continue to play student football in the University even as a member of staff. I play cricket for a local team (Wolvercote), the medical department and captain the Magdalen college old boys team. I am a keen triathlete and member of the Oxford Triathlon Club. Outside of sport I love playing board games and have a big collection at home. I also love EVERYTHING about Star Wars and am currently obsessed with the tabletop game Star Wars Legion.

I am an immunologist and science communicator based at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford. Since joining the Institute in 2008 I have worked on a number of studies and clinical trials testing vaccines developed against a host of different infectious diseases, including Malaria, Ebola and Salmonella both in the UK and in Africa.  During the pandemic I have worked as part of the Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine communications team, providing scientifically accurate information directly from the team to both the public and worldwide media. 

A typical day for me has changed over the years. Early in my career I spent a lot of time in the laboratory running experiments to help us understand how our immune system works following vaccination. Lab work rarely runs from 9-5 like an office job and sometimes you need to work weekends, however it can also be pretty flexible if you plan well.

Whilst I was working in the lab I did a lot of public engagement work in my free time. I would run events in evenings and on weekends because I loved speaking to the public about my work. I am particularly proud of a project I ran called Board Games Public Engagement with Research which use board games to communicate science.

Since the start of the Pandemic I have worked almost full time in public engagement and science communications with a bit of lab work on the side. At the start this was a very tiring job with random and sometimes very long hours. It has quietened down a bit now and is more 5-9. I still get to develope fun activities but also engage with the media on how to communicate our research on vaccines correctly. I do miss the lab a bit but I love the creative side of this job more.