Profile

I was born in Leeds but I have done Chemistry in lots of other countries because I like living in different places.  I now live in Reading, near London, in a house with an enormous trampoline and a pond that has frogs and newts in it.  I really like frogs.  I like making (and eating) bread, playing viola with other musicians, and cycling in the countryside except when there are really steep hills.

In the Recycling and Separation Technologies group, we look for better ways to separate metals that are important in modern life.  These include platinum and palladium, which are used in catalysts and jewellery, along with cobalt and nickel which are used to make batteries for electric cars.  We do lab experiments to find the separation chemistry and equipment that will have the smallest impact on the environment – use the least energy, produce the least waste, and use the safest possible chemicals.
Although we are recyclers, we sometimes work with the people who mine these metals too.  I once went to South Africa, where platinum and palladium are mined, and was allowed to go into the top security area where they keep bars of pure metal.  I was allowed to hold a platinum bar that was worth more than my house, but I was accompanied by two scary-looking people with automatic weapons so I made sure they saw me put it back.