I first joined Imperial in 1999 as a Research Assistant in Professor Douglas Young’s group, working on developing luminescent reporter constructs to identify drugs effective against Tuberculosis. I was given the opportunity to get involved with lab management and completed the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health’s National Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health.
In 2003, I joined the Magdi Yacoub Institute as the Building, Lab and Safety Manager at the laboratories associated with Harefield Hospital and the work of Professor Magdi Yacoub.
In 2007, I returned to Imperial as a Safety Manager in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. Since then, I have been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to work on several projects to improve safety processes and have met many talented and friendly people along the way. My team’s focus is on trying to support the academic and teaching mission so that staff and students can work as safely as possible while ensuring their cutting-edge work can continue.
I am lucky that I get to work across several departments, and talk and discuss safety across a wide range of disciplines – every day poses a new challenge. Over the course of my time at Imperial, I have been asked to join various initiatives including assisting with the Target Malaria project and auditing insectary facilities in Mali and Burkina Faso, joining the Expert Biosafety Group for a team in Italy, becoming a committee member for the University Chemical Safety Forum in the UK, and collaborating with safety officers from UCLA, Delft University of Technology and Karolinska Research Institute on safety in the university sector.
It is a pleasure coming to work at Imperial. I may not be ‘at the bench’ anymore but being around the innovation and science is highly motivating for me and my team.