Profile
Pam Harrison
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About Me:
I live with my husband and 2 daughters in Macclesfield. I love to go walking, crochet, sewing, reading and travelling (around the UK at the moment!). I am trying to live as sustainably as possible and we have a family challenge to buy as little new as possible.
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I live in Macclesfield with my husband, 2 daughters and 2 guinea pigs named Rainbow and Sparkle (named by my 6 y old!). When I have time to myself (that doesn’t happen often!) I like to read, crochet, sew and upcycle things. As a family we love to be outdoors and go camping, grow fruit and veg at the allotment and go walking and adventuring. We also love a Disney film and pizza night 🙂
I try to live as sustainably as possible, making small everyday changes to reduce our carbon imprint – although I have a long way to go! I don’t have an electric car and can’t quite give up on burgers and bacon sandwiches 🙂
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I work for AstraZeneca in a department called pharmaceutical development. Our job as a department is to take an idea of a medicine that has shown some potential of working into a medicine that is on the shelf for everyone to use when needed. We mostly work on medicines for cancer at Macclesfield.
Currently my specific job is to store a medicine at high temperatures and humidities and use that information to help to choose the packaging that the medicine is stored in (e.g. a bottle, blister packets…) and also for how long and where (cupboard at room temperature, fridge…)
To do this I sometimes use automation to make things much easier and I have more time to look at the results and not preparing samples.
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My Typical Day:
I work part time Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I currently do a lot of work from home due to the changes with Covid. I do go in to work about once per week when I need to go into the lab. The rest of my time is spent working at my laptop (that can be anywhere I have a connection to WiFi).
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I start at about 10am, after dropping my daughters off where they need to be. I will check on any experiments from the previous day if required and then read through any emails or talk to colleagues about anything urgent that may be needed that day.
I will eat lunch at my laptop so I can leave work earlier in the evening to spend time with my family.
If at work I spend the afternoon in the lab, preparing samples and preparing instruments to run those samples.
If I have no lab work to do I will stay at my laptop whilst writing reports, writing up experiments, checking other peoples work or looking at data and making decisions for that project. We also have a few meetings a week through microsoft teams (a bit like Zoom) so I can talk to colleagues and we can show each other what we have been working on.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Donate to a charity to encourage more young girls to be involved with STEM
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Education:
Astley High School – Tameside – 11 x GCSE’s
Ashton 6th Form college – AS Art, Graphics, Biology and A level Chemistry, Maths and IT
York university – MChem in chemistry including a year in industry at GSK
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Qualifications:
GCSE – Maths, Art, Graphics, Chemistry, Biology, physics, IT, English lang. , Englist lit. RE, French
AS level – Art, Graphics, Biology
A level – Chemistry, Maths, IT
MChem degree in chemistry
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Work History:
Before leaving university – staff at soft play centre, shop assistant, carer for a disabled teenager, laminating argos catalogues, supermarket checkout, year in industry at GSK as part of degree
From graduation – AstraZeneca with promotion from scientist to senior scientist
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
quiet, confident, enthusiastic
What did you want to be after you left school?
a web designer
Were you ever in trouble at school?
no
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Oasis or stereophonics
What's your favourite food?
Pizza
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
own a campervan, live in a sustainable world, be happy
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