Petia Tzokova

"Petia fits well with the ‘Investigator’ type since her PhD involves lots of facts and findings that she has to be persistent to eventually piece together into a dissertation. Her PhD may seem specialised, but it includes lots of different subjects, including coding, structural analysis and maths, all of which she has to understand.Petia also needs to be logical and creative, to try new ideas and to analyse the results that she gets. In her PhD, she is doing something no one has ever done before and she needs to come up with creative ideas to solve problems. This matches with the ‘Developer’ type.Attention to detail is very important in a PhD and Petia needs to be methodical and careful to ensure that her work is free from errors. This shows that Petia also suits the ‘Quality Controller’ type."

"Petia is a PhD student researching Engineering, specifically the buckling of plates and shells, and how thin sheets of material behave under certain loads. She uses coding to derive equations that describe the behaviour of the sheets, including their deformations and the stresses within them. She also uses computer models and physical experiments to verify the behaviour of the sheets. Her research could contribute to future aerospace structures or the automotive or construction industries.A typical day for a PhD student can be in the office, in the lab or out in the field. Petia is mostly in the office, where she uses computer modelling programs and Excel to analyse her results. She also meets with her supervisor and talks with her colleagues. Petia really enjoys the flexibility of being a student. Since her PhD is computer-based, she can work from anywhere at any time. Petia has always been excited to go into buildings that she has helped to design. She visited some rooms inside a building she designed to ensure that there wouldn't be too much vibration. She tested it when she got there and is pleased to say they weren't too bouncy!"

"Petia was born in Bulgaria and moved to the UK when she was 9. Both of her parents are scientists, so she has always felt like she could be an engineer or anything else that she wanted to be! She didn’t even realise there were fewer women in engineering until after she went to university. Petia went on to study General Engineering at university, specialising in Civil and Structural Engineering for the last part of her degree. She then worked as a Structural Engineer for a year, where she designed the structure of buildings. This involved working in collaboration with architects, other types of engineers and construction site contractors. Petia’s starting salary was £22,000. After that, the opportunity for Petia to do a PhD in Structural Engineering came up and she decided to go for it, as it seemed like a good way to do something more technical, which appealed to her."

"In her spare time, Petia likes cycling, going for walks, arts and crafts and computer games. Her PhD gives her many opportunities to travel to conferences and workshops all over the world if she chooses to and if she can find funding. If Petia wanted to stay in academia, she could go on to a post-doc and then eventually get a lectureship. However, she already knows that she doesn’t want to go into academia and she will definitely go back into industry after her PhD. She thinks she will probably stay working in engineering, maybe as a Structural Engineer. She also hopes to have a family at some point."

"In a typical morning Petia spends some time reading and answering emails. Then she might do some computer modelling and coding. At lunchtime she might attend a talk or seminar related to her research. In the afternoon, she reads some academic papers and writes about her research."

"Petia did 12 GCSEs including Maths (A*), Double Science (A*) and English (A). In years 12 and 13, she took A-level Maths (A), Further Maths (A), Physics (A), Chemistry (A) and Art (B). She then did a degree in Engineering at the University of Cambridge. After graduating, she worked as a Structural Engineer for a year before starting her PhD."