Profile

After doing both my undergraduate (Chemical Physics MSci) and doctoral (Nanosicence/Colloid Science PhD) degrees at Bristol University, I moved to Reading to start my career. I met my wife when we were both in (and subsequently running) a student choir in Bristol. I’ve always been involved with music, having started in brass bands and with singing taking over once I got to uni. I have conducted several student and adult choirs, and have also won several national championships with a choir in Bristol which led to representing the country at international singing competitions in the USA. Since 2017 I have been qualified as a judge with the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers, which involves judging national and international singing competitions and providing coaching on singing technique and musicality. I have found a love of cooking over lockdown, especially once I figured out it’s very much like science, only you can lick the spoon! I enjoy reading sci-fi and fantasy novels, leaning towards authors like David Gemmel and David (+Leigh) Eddings.

I work in the Fuel Cell Research team in the Johnson Matthey Technology Centre, where I undertake mid- and long-term research projects focused on designing hydrogen fuel cells for heavy duty (trucks and bigger) applications. As my background is in measuring the way surfaces and polymers interact with each other, I have been tasked with understanding how the various components in a catalyst ink work. Our inks are fairly simple, with only a powder, a solvent, and a polymer, so making sure they are all working together in the right way is crucial.

On a rare day without meetings, I will spend most of my time in the lab, making samples and running measurements. I will measure a large number of properties of the particles in my samples, such as their size, shape, charge, and how the particle surfaces are interacting with the solvent. I also take the ink samples that I have made and coat them onto various surfaces and see what structures are formed, before converting the layers into a form that can then be tested as part of a fuel cell. I will then spend some time getting data back from the various measurement techniques and plotting/analysing the results to guide further work. As with any job, I also have regular meetings with colleagues from across the business in various functions, such as product development, purchasing, commercial sales, production, outreach, and even charitable functions. If I have sufficiently many meetings in a day I can work from home, which is great to be able to do.

I usually have lunch with a group of my colleagues in our on-site canteen. In the summer, we go out into the gardens and have a picnic on the grass in front of the old house.