Profile

I live in Hertfordshire with my girlfriend. This is near to where I grew up, but I have lived and worked all over the UK. I went to university twice and have two degrees, Chemistry and Polymer-Engineering. Unusually for a lot of scientists, I have had lots of different jobs not all related to science.
My hobbies are mostly around board games, books and walking. I love the countryside and try and go on long hikes in national parks whenever I go on holiday. Outside of what I do I am very interested in Nuclear power and History.

I work as a process development chemist. This means I take lab-based experiments and work out how to make them work at big scale; like in factories.
My job is working for Johnson Matthey, a chemicals company based in Royston. I make automotive catalysts: these are devices that go in cars, busses, lorries, and vans to reduce the amount of pollution they make. I care about the environment and I am proud to help make our air cleaner.
Jonson Matthey has factories all over the world and I get to speak to and visit people from all over; Macedonia, Poland, America, Argentina, South-Africa, Japan, China, Malaysia, and India to name a few.

I usually start work between 8am and 9am. The first thing I do is to check what my daily schedule is like, as I have to go to lots of meetings. We use meetings to share our experimental results and brainstorm ideas. Then I can plan what I am doing in the lab, either by myself or helping as part of a team.

The main activities in the lab are making ‘washcoats’ the solutions that contain chemicals that break down the pollutants in car exhausts. Once these have been made, we have to work out how we are going to use them to coat ceramic ‘substrates’. These are hard and porous bricks that once covered in the right chemicals can be fitted inside a car exhaust pipe. This can take days of working in the lab to get right.

Once we know how to make the catalytic converters, I write down step by step instructions and e-mail them to the factory. If the factory has any questions, they skype me and I help them solve problems.