Francesca Troiani

"I am definitely a Quality Controller, my anxiety disorder makes me pretty great at spotting and managing risks and I have a tendency to try to keep everyone safe and happy! At the moment I am a Programme Manager at the LGC Grant Management Group, working on reviewing and managing funded research projects in health and medical devices. Before that, I was a Research Associate at Imperial College, focusing most of my time on creating and delivering good public engagement activities, for which I am mostly using my skills as a Coordinator, especially being organised and getting things done on time and budget.I have had so many different interests, moving from one to the next one like a butterfly and always feeling a bit out of place for not being able to find something I could stick to. I recently watched an amazing Ted Talk by Emilie Wapnick (https://www.ted.com/talks/emilie_wapnick_why_some_of_us_don_t_have_one_true_calling?language=en#t-734011) in which I found out I am what she calls a multipotentialite: a person who has many different interests and creative pursuits in life and who has no “one true calling” the way specialists do."

"I am a physicist who ended up doing research in technology for the brain and nervous system. I then moved into a role that manages research and research projects."

"I studied Physics for my undergraduate degree, and Medical and Nuclear Physics for my Masters. I then worked at a research centre on Computational Neuroscience (creating simulations on how some specific brain cells behave). I received my PhD in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London, working on neural interfaces (devices that allow us to connect to our brains). I kept working there for a couple more years, focusing on creating activities to explain our research to the public. Currently I've moved to work on the other side of research, reviewing and managing projects!"

"I love reading (specifically fantasy and sci-fi), watching movies and TV series and singing. I am trying to learn to play the piano."

"I do a lot of work in front of my computer. I read funding applications for research, prepare briefs for the people who will decide whether these projects will be funded, talk to the researcher, and act as a first point of contact between them and the funding agent. During my PhD I also built an experimental set-up so that I could test the hypothesis I came up with in my research."

"I studied in Italy, where the system is quite different. We're allowed to choose only a path (scientific, artistic, classic) and then study for a bunch of things related to that and we don't have GCSEs or A-Levels, only a big (written and oral) exam at the end of the fifth year of high school, testing on all the subjects studied. I choose a scientific path, that led me to study:Humanistic: Italian Literature, English Literature, Philosophy, History, Latin language, Latin Literature, Art HistoryScientific: Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Biology"