Stephanie Liggins

"An influential investigator sums me up pretty well! I am inquisitive, persistent and practical and therefore easily align with being an investigator. It is essential to what I do, always asking why. It appeals to my logical and systematic nature and helps me approach new challenges in a structured way, to develop a theory, build a method to assess, capture the data and critically analyse.More an more, creating effective teams is essential in any career. As an influencer, my role has two branches, to get the most out of the team I work with, enabling them to excel and secondly, to utilise the skills of others to ensure I can do that. It is about getting the right people to do the right job and so the better I can build my network and expand my sphere of influence to access skills from others, the more effective we can be."

"I am a research scientist and a project leader. My role is to understand new customers requirements and design new ways to synthesise diamond to give the material specific properties to address a technical challenge. I manage a team of scientists, engineers and technicians to achieve this, coordinate the finances of a project, work with production sites to transfer new processes, generate intellectual property from the research and at times, be involved in promotional marketing material for new products. I love the hands on aspects of the work I do, watching an idea transform into something physical and working across all the areas of the business. What I enjoy most is the diversity of activities, the collaboration of the team and being able to develop new products that will allow other fields to push their technical boundaries.A graduate research scientist starting salary can be around £30,000."

"Throughout my education, extra-curricular activities and home life, there have been influencers who have led me to who and where I am today, my family and GirlGuiding UK being the big ones. They encouraged me to be inspired and to aspire to be the best I could be at whatever I chose to do. I was always a fiddler, dismantling things (sometimes putting them back together). Science or engineering was always going to be a path I would naturally follow and one I would be proud to associate myself with, although during my GCSEs I had my mind set on technical drawing! I followed subjects I seemed to be good at which mostly I also enjoyed and slowly focused the theme of my studies to maths and physics. At uni, it was about how can I practically apply this, what is it I want to get from what I do and what sounds exciting to be involved in. Equal balance of heart and head.Networking and connections presented the opportunity that finds me where I am today. I began as an assistant research scientist and am now a principal scientist, leading a team and working closely with other business areas to design new processes and deliver new products to the market. I have to work with finance teams, engineers, logistics specialists, and operations managers to achieve success and get to work directly with customers to understand their challenges and design solutions. I have delivered two product families through this route to date and seeing the product I designed, developed and make a reality go to sale gives me a real buzz."

"Unsurprisingly, work is a big part of my life but in my free time I play hockey, love to read and travel. I have attempted to learn musical instruments, the saxophone and the guitar but also enjoy a quiet evening with friends, good food and the odd board game. I am a warranted leader with GirlGuiding UK and part of a Trefoil Guild formed with friends created during an international opportunity to Japan I had the pleasure to help lead."

"The fantastic thing about what I do is that there is no real average day. Typically, my morning will begin with a review of how the synthesis reactors are performing and a scrum session with the development team looking at what activities are coming up. This could be anything from loading and running up a reactor, engaging with a supplier to develop a new piece of technology, designing and delivering novel methods for our synthesis or exploring new opportunities for diamond products with our customers. There’s the administrative piece too but generally, I can be found in the lab getting my hands dirty!"

"After finishing at an all girls high school, I choose to go to a mixed 6th form college. I wanted a new environment and challenges to best prepare me, knowing I wanted to go to University. After 2 years, I left with A-Levels in Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics with AS-Levels in History and Archaeology, a nice balance to the STEM subjects and started at university to read Physics.I completed an undergraduate masters degree in physics which meant 3.5 years of lectures and exams and 6 months completing a final year project. I definitely found I was better at some topics than others and always enjoyed the practical elements - showing my investigative personality from the start. I considered options to join the real world or continue studying after graduation and it was the enthusiasm of one particular lecturer about his subject that stood out. I wanted to test myself and see if an academic/research career was for me so continued on to do a PhD at the same university under their supervision.My PhD was sponsored and gave me a great opportunity to see both sides, academic and industrial. It allowed me to build networks beyond the university and after my 4 years I was lucky enough that a job opportunity with the sister company of my sponsor came up and even more lucky that I got the job. Apart from a recognised qualification, completing my PhD had shown research to be a good fit for me but that I needed a real-world impact to the work I was doing. The job at Element Six offered that and I have been here ever since working in the R&D team on new product development."