Profile

I live in Cardiff with my partner Daryl. We have recently moved to a new house where we are putting in lots of diy to make it nice. I enjoy having quite  a busy life and for half of the year it is mostly spent playing hockey – I am a member of my local hockey club. I enjoy cooking and baking when I have time and my favourite cake is lemon drizzle. When I was a student I just loved to watch Friends on repeat and I know most of it off by heart! These days I don’t get much time to watch TV but I enjoy shows like Bones and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I used to have a dog called Jaz who was a toy Yorkshire terrier who used to come on weekend adventures such as biking, hiking and camping. When she started getting a bit older she would sit in the rucksack with her little head poking out so she could watch the world go by. She loved being part of it!

As a Materials Chemist my job is to make and design new materials for batteries and other energy storage devices. A battery is made up of 2 electrodes and other bits including the aluminium to package it so it can be handled safely. I specifically focus on chemistries of the materials that store the energy inside the battery. It is these materials that react and release energy to create the electricity that powers devices. Batteries come in all shapes and sizes due to their many different uses – from electric cars to mobile phones to batteries for wind and solar farms.

My job is very similar to a chef who will make new recipes for meals. Except the chemicals or materials that I make aren’t edible.  I use my knowledge of chemistry to figure out what chemicals would store energy and how to make them. I work on developing these new materials using environmentally friendly methods such as low power, low heat, non-toxic chemicals as well as using sustainable starting products. One of my focuses is investigating sodium-ion batteries to replace lithium batteries. I am really lucky in the place I work in because I get to use a lot of specialist equipment – making my job really interesting and exciting.

In my job I am very lucky to have a wide variety of tasks to perform throughout the day. I design and plan the experiments I am going to do. This is usually based on results of previous experiments I have performed and other research I have conducted (including my general chemistry knowledge, speaking to other scientists of relevant experience and relevant published work from around the world). Once I have made a material I will test and characterise the material I have made. These can be quick tests using microscopes to see what the particles look like or longer tests to see how much energy the material can store. I have access to powerful microscopes and analysis tools to conduct these experiments. The data I gather can be images, graphs and numeric results. I use programs such as excel to analyse some data but I sometimes need to use computer programs such as python to analyse large sets of data.  I need to go through this data in order to understand what it is telling me. It’s actually quite similar to solving a crime, where the test result are clues about the material you have made. Every week we have a team meeting to discuss what work we have completed, results we have gathered and what it might mean. Often we help each other out, and as a team help decide what to do next. Planning new experiments also involves ordering chemicals and equipment needed as well as making a risk assessment – safety first! Every month we have to write a report about the work we have completed so far and what we have learnt. Around every 3 months we have to report a high-level story of the work in a presentation.  We work with a lot of other research groups and consultants outside of the company so a bit of time is spent in meetings with them as well. We also have the opportunity to travel to conferences and external meetings that are relevant to the projects we are completing at that time. This is really important for professional development and making sure our research is current and worthwhile.

I have my own desk in an open plan office with my team, but there are smaller rooms we can use if it’s too noisy. The office has a giant whiteboard wall on one side, where we mind map ideas and do calculations. We have 3 labs, so there is plenty of space for everyone to work and share all the equipment. Some equipment is popular and we often we have to make a plan of who gets to use what in the coming week. We make sure that everyone gets the chance to use the equipment they want. Planning like this also helps us make most efficient use of the time we have during the week in order to get as much work done as we can.