I've got a very unusual background for somebody in my role as I never went to university. I went straight from school with my A-levels to go and work and train as a biomedical scientist at St Thomas Hospital in London. I completed my qualifications, including my degree, my Master’s and my PhD whilst working and made my way up the ranks. This was back in the late seventies, early eighties when going to university wasn't quite so common. I think it's unusual for somebody that never went to university to end up working in a university themselves.
When I was growing up, I always knew I wanted to do something medical. My father was a GP, so we had lots of medical talk going on around the dinner table. However back in those days, you needed to use the phone to be able to work in medicine. As I am profoundly deaf this was not something I was able to do and so it was my father that encouraged me to look at the laboratories. I always enjoyed chemistry, particular at school with the experiments that we used to do. Therefore, working in the hospital laboratories seemed to be the best place for me.
I was working as a leukaemia researcher at King's College in London and I met my husband Chris who was also working in leukaemia research in Cardiff. We ended up getting married but still had to live apart most of the time because of our jobs. It was then that the opportunity came up to come to BSMS and set up a research team together, which was really exciting and also enabled us to be able to live together after many years of being apart. However, the most exciting thing really was the opportunity to set up a research team and work physically together to direct that team.
My primary role is, I am a leukaemia research scientist. We have a team of PhD students and master's students all working on projects, researching chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, acute myeloid leukaemia and also looking possibly to move in to do a little bit of multiple myeloma. We're looking at setting up laboratory models of leukaemia to test out novel drugs and to identify new potential therapies.
The research side is the main bulk of my job role but I'm also deputy director of student support. I help medical students who are having problems. I'm particularly focused on medical students with disabilities as I have a disability myself, so I have a passion for helping them. Also, I've recently taken over, with Professor Somnath Mukhopadhyay as Co-Head of the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine.
I enjoy working with young people in the lab. I really enjoy being able to teach the knowledge that I have and then I enjoy getting back from them, things that they've learnt. They teach me and it’s very much a two-way process. It's lovely when you put a lot of time and effort in at the beginning to get them going with their research and then they start coming back to you with great ideas, things I hadn't thought of.
When I got my first job training at St Thomas' hospital as a biomedical scientist, I went into lots of different labs, including haematology, blood transfusion, clinical chemistry, microbiology, virology and histopathology. We were then given a choice of which of those areas we enjoyed the most. I always liked haematology and when I was doing my exams it was the leukaemia and oncology side that interested me and that I enjoyed studying the most. It was also the area where much work was needed to try and improve therapies and treatments, which is why I ended up in research. I also lost my father to cancer which cemented my desire to do oncology research.
I want to carry on with the team being successful. I don't necessarily have any more personal goals because I have overachieved anything I ever anticipated I would. Therefore, I want to focus on the success of the team and see the young people that we've got working with us succeed with their careers and carry on finding out new things and continue with the research we are currently working on.
My biggest professional achievement, I think would be when we came here from two really big teams at Kings College and Cardiff, and it was just the two of us. We didn't know whether we would be able to get the funding in or whether we would be able to get the people here and there was an element of risk in that move. Therefore, I think the biggest achievement was when the grants started coming in. First of all, it was a Blood Cancer UK grant, and then there was a Medical Research Council grant. That was a big achievement and it was almost a stamp on the fact that we'd gotten it and we had succeeded.
I am inspired by Helen Keller, who was around in the 20th century. She was a disability rights activist and she actually became deaf and blind through illness at a very young age. However, despite that, she went to Harvard and got a degree and was very prolific. She advocated for disability rights, women's rights and also for the American Civil Liberties Union. She was very ahead of her time and she never let her disability hold her back. The way she achieved what she achieved with no hearing and no sight blows me away, it is just amazing.
My deafness was a challenge, particularly through school, back in the seventies and eighties. I didn't have my independence because the only real means of communication, as I mentioned earlier, was either face to face or through the telephone and I couldn't use the telephone. I went through a normal comprehensive school and some teachers were more helpful than others. Even now I go to meetings and I often sit there and I don’t know what's going on. Therefore, that's probably the biggest challenge, but at the same time, it's not really a problem for me because I don't know any different.
I was a working mum and my work-life balance, particularly when I was working up in London was hard and it was tiring. I often found in those days, especially as a mum and a scientist that I was constantly juggling the balls. Now, it's much easier as my children are more independent. I think I've got quite a good work/life balance. When I get in the car to go home from work, I'm quite good at switching off and focussing on what I need to do at home. Hobbies wise, I work out five days a week, even when I don't want to. I think exercise is good for mental and physical health. I also enjoy sewing and making things and I'm very good at finding DIY projects for my husband to do around the house.
The best piece of advice I would give my younger self would be believe in yourself earlier in your career. I used to want to try and stay under the radar and so I would encourage myself not to do that. I would also tell my younger self that a working mum is not a bad mum. I think you've always got that feeling of guilt when you're a working mum. But now, I look back and I realise I wasn't a bad mum.
I'd say the successful work-life balance is not about the quantity of time you spend on each one, it's about the quality of the time you spend on each one and how you use the time. Particularly for women getting into science. Science used to be a very male-dominated career, but slowly it's changing and we need more women in science, particularly in senior roles. Therefore, if you enjoy science, don't be frightened to go into the career and don't be frightened to aim high.