Victoria Garfield

"I think the personality types match with me really well! I think these personality types fit well with my work because it's the type of job where you have multiple different roles, but it isn't always easy to be good at them all. "

"The main things I do as a Genetic Epidemiologist are: a lot of reading through previous scientific papers around the research question and topic that I will be researching; a lot of programming; I do a lot of data science/analysis of big data (very large datasets mostly around understanding how people's health changes as they age and why); I do a lot of writing of scientific articles and grants/fellowships to get funding; I supervise and mentor students and more junior members of staff; I do some lecturing and small group teaching too. What I love most about my job: the team I work in, working at UCL, the flexibility of the job, the impact the work has and lots of travelling. Starting salary is between £37 and £42k."

"The route into my current role was slightly unusual compared with my colleagues and team members. I started with a degree in Psychology, which I completed part-time whilst working full-time. These jobs (as I was young and pretty inexperienced) ranged from childminding to working in a call centre, as well as working as some remote work as a research analyst for a market research company. I also worked doing note taking during market research sessions, as I am a very fast touch typist (a skill I was actually taught properly at middle school in the USA). I then completed a Master's degree in Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology and finally, the most important thing that is needed for my job: I embarked on a 4-year funded PhD to carry out research and become an academic researcher. In the early days I was inspired by a lecturer of mine whose area is Genetics and Psychology and this led me to sort of abandon traditional psychology careers as an option, as I was fascinated by the intersection of the brain and genetics. This is how I've ended up where I am today. Most of my colleagues have degrees in biomedical science/biology/human genetics/statistics/maths/epidemiology so, my route was different, but I'm still here and am an extremely valued team member."

"In my spare time I really like going on long hikes with my husband, travelling, swimming and generally doing things to stay active. However, I also really enjoy watching TV and I do really enjoy winding down with some light-hearted (what some call 'trash') telly, such as things like Dynasty, Love is Blind, etc. I am also very interested in forensic science and psychology, and have a real interest in the criminal mind, particularly serial killers and cult leaders. I have a fairly decent collection of books in this area, something that lots of people find a bit weird when they come to my house! "

"A typical day for me starts with a coffee and going through emails at my desk, I particularly try to reply to my students as swiftly as I can to not keep them waiting. I'll then usually make a to-do list for the day and try to get through as many of these tasks as possible. I usually have a 1-2 meetings a day, but there are days where I have no meetings and these are great because I get to do 'actual work'. I'm a big data scientist who works with DNA and health data, so a lot of my time is spent writing code (in R and/or Unix) to analyse my data and find some answers to big questions that will hopefully be of use to the general population and their health. I am currently working on a few big projects, but my main area of research at the moment focuses on why people with diabetes and/or high blood pressure are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia in older age. This is an observation that we have known for a while, but we still don't have a lot of answers. My main aim with my work in this area is to be able to help provide answers as to particular ages when we should have interventions for (for example, before the diseases develop), whether we can use existing drugs to treat dementia based on the fact that they help with diabetes and/or hypertension, and I would also like my work to contribute to the wider prevention of dementia, as we now have over 1 million known cases in the UK. "

"I moved here from Uruguay (my mum is Uruguayan and I was born there, but Dad was British) at the start of 2006 and in 2007 I started a BSc Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, followed by an MSc in Research Methods in Psychology from Goldsmiths, University of London and finally, the role I have now is mostly thanks to my PhD in Genetic Epidemiology from UCL. For my current role what counts the most is the PhD, as I'm a researcher and a PhD gives you the right skills to do research, both in and out of academia."