Profile

I was born on the most northern tip of the UK and was brought up in a tiny village. I travelled to school by bus everyday, which took almost an hour. I spent all my time as a teenager playing golf and hanging out with my friends. I moved to Glasgow in central Scotland to study and it was the first time i had lived in a city. Tall buildings were new to me, it was a big culture shock! After my degree I did a PhD and moved to the east coast of Scotland, to Dundee. During my PhD i travelled all over the world, from Canada to Bali, it was amazing! After my time in Scotland, i moved to Budapest in Hungary. I lived and worked here for 4yrs. It was an incredible experience. However, i missed Scotland and returned to work in Edinburgh. Here we had our first child and bought our first house, so it has a very important place in my heart. Finally, i was offered the chance to start my own laboratory in Dundee so going full circle, i returned to Dundee in 2019. Living in the countryside gives us access to beautiful walks and scenery. We have lots of wildlife in the garden, where we grow plants and vegetables. Our second child was born recently and so most of my free time is taken up with them, which is great…but tiring. To try and relax in the evenings my wife and I watch TV and read books.

I lead a small team of researchers studying what happens to the brain in diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Motor Neuron Disease (MND). We use human brain samples and look at them with special microscopes to see tiny changes. We believe that even the smallest changes in the shape of your brain can have huge effects on your ability to use it. In other words, diseases like Alzheimer’s disease can start with tiny changes that result in people losing their memory. If we can figure out what these tiny changes are we might be able to design ways to stop or reverse them before they get too severe.

I get up around 7am with my oldest child and we have breakfast together while my wife catches up on sleep with the younger one. I get into the office around 9am and meet with my research team. We plan the experiments for the day and i return to my office to work on other things.

Most of my time is spent applying for money to fund our research. This is a very important part of my job and ensures my research team have salaries and the money they need to perform their experiments.

Also, when we complete a research project it needs to be written up as a manuscript so we can publish the findings. This means other researchers can learn about what we have done. This is also very important, it means the whole scientific world can learn from each other.

I also do a lot of engagement and outreach work, so some of my time is spent preparing events and materials.

If i have time, i will go and buy some lunch, but often i just have a cup of coffee and a snack at my computer. Not very healthy 🙁

My day is often broken up with meetings. I sit on numerous committees aimed at improving the research environment and opportunities for all research staff. I believe this is an important part of my job, so i dedicate time most weeks to this.

At the end of my day i drive home and help with dinner. Once the kids are fed, I normally do the bath time routine and get the oldest child into bed.

Finally, this gives us some time to sit and relax in front of the TV. We watch a lot of different drama series and currently watching The Crown, a dramatisation of the British monarchy (it’s better than it sounds!)