Profile

I live in Calderdale, near Halifax, I moved here to be with my now husband.  Before that I was in Hitchin in Hertfordshire (nearish to London).  I’m originally from the Yorkshire Dales (my family are still there) and I’ve also lived in Warwick.  I’ve moved around a bit, but I think I’ve found somewhere I want to settle!

When I’m not in work I am probably: making something, playing an instrument, reading or exploring.

My home is very full of stuff: wool and fabric and paper and everything else for making things; books, I have 3 bookshelves and rapidly running out of room; my piano and cello.  All buried amongst usual house things (sofa, bed, wardrobe etc.).  My husband is also great at collecting things, he likes robots and gadgets.  It can take forever to clean!

Music-wise, I play a lot of piano (living room soloist only though really) and even more cello. I was going to be taking my grade 8 in cello on 20th March, but that’s been postponed.  It’s going to be challenging keeping the pieces at a standard I’m happy with, without getting really bored of them.

My background is in physics and engineering (I used to design spacecraft) and now I support people to take their science and engineering knowledge into schools.
I look after the whole of North Yorkshire.  I use a computer lots, to work out which schools are getting support, finding out where their nearest volunteer is and matching people up.

I also help bring engineers and scientist into the museum.  They come to join in with all sorts of things, from speed networking, gameshows and workshops.

When I was design spacecraft, I worked with lots of different people and was a volunteer myself.  I use my experience of what it’s like to be a volunteer to help others work out what they could do.  I also use that when I’m talking to teachers, getting them to link up what they teach with what different volunteers could do.

My typical day could be arranging events for teachers, scientists and engineers to get together, or it could be using a computer to map where everyone is and what they are up to. I look for “gaps”, areas where there isn’t anything going on, to see if there is anything I can do to help get things going. I also look to see what is popular in an area or with a particular school, to see if I can get more variety of things going on.