"My Skills My Life identified me as a Communicator, Coordinator and Manager and this is very close to my personality. In my work I am always communicating with people, either by email, on the phone or via web-conference. Many of the people I work with live in other countries and are from different cultures so it's really important that I can communicate in a language that they will understand. The work that I do can sound very complicated and scientific terms are not easy for non-scientists to understand so I'm often translating technical terms into simpler words that our clinical trial participants will be able to understand. I lived in France for a year as part of my university studies and know what it is like to have to learn another language and to have to translate everything in my head to be able to speak back to people. I like to make sure everyone is included and has their opportunity to speak in meetings and to encourage quieter people to get their thoughts heard. In my role I also have to be very organised in order to get my work done on time and to be able to anticipate changes in deadlines and to stay calm under pressure. I coordinate projects across different teams and different countries as so project management skills are really important. I also manage a global team of people and in this role I'm also a coach and a mentor to people. I also use these skills outside of work as a volunteer for a number of charities and as a sports coach."

"I work in the Clinical Research Group, PPD in Thermo Fisher Scientific. New drugs need to be tested and trialled before doctors prescribe them and patients take them. This allows drugs to be checked for safety, effectiveness and dosage. After potential new drugs have been tested in the laboratory we start human clinical trials. They are tested on healthy volunteers to check that they are safe. The substances are then tested on people with the illness to ensure that they are safe and that they work. I work with the clinical trials sites where we have doctors, nurses and administrative staff who perform the clinical trials. My role is to ensure that everyone is trained to do their job. We work to extremely strict regulations that have to be carefully followed to make sure that our study participants are well looked after and that the data that we collect can be relied on. During the covid pandemic our sites were very busy testing different covid vaccines and when the vaccine got approved this made me very proud that our role was important to everyone in the world. It was a huge team effort and I really loved working with a global team, even though my role was small everyone was needed to do their part. I also volunteered at one of the vaccination clinics during the pandemic and I've taken part in a number of different clinical trials myself so I know what it is like and this understanding helps me to ensure all our staff are trained and follow the correct procedures. "

"I loved Biology at school and I was passionate about being a vet. I studied really hard and I got lots of work experience but in the end I did not quite get the grades that I needed to take up my place at University. This was really devastating news and I took a gap year to work out what else I could do. I realised that my passion for science was something I had to make the most of, and also that I enjoyed French and travelling. I found a Combined Honours degree course at Swansea University that was a 4-year course, Biology and French with the 3rd year at Bordeaux University. After I graduated I started my first job with Johnson & Johnson and in my first year as a Graduate Trainee I got to try several different roles and I found that clinical trials was what I was most interested in and would be good at. I became a Clinical Research Associate (CRA) and travelled all over the UK and France to hospitals and GP surgeries which were taking part in the trial, to review and collect study data and also to train the staff. I moved to work at Pfizer after I had 2 years of experience and had to live and work away from home. I travelled a lot in my role as a Clinical Team Manager and I loved the variety of different trials I was working on and all the people that I met. I now lead the Global Training team and use a variety of different skills gained from all my previous roles, especially project management skills."

"Outside of work my biggest passions are animals and sport. I combine both by doing canicross, which is running with your dog attached to you so that you work together as a team. I have two Border Collies and they are very fast and together we can do a 10km race in under 50 minutes (although if they decide to stop for sniffs and to go to the toilet it takes longer!). I live in a National Park so we have lots of ponies, donkeys, cows and even deer It makes me angry that some people leave their litter on the ground which can be harmful to the animals. Every day I do a litter-pick on my walk. During COVID we formed a litter-picking group and regularly take part in \"Keep Britain Tidy\" events in the village where I live, at the beach or in the countryside. I also love hockey, tennis and sailing and my favourite place to go on holiday is the Lake District (as long as my dogs can come too!)."

"My typical day starts with walking the dogs in the forest for an hour. I love the exercise and the fresh air is good for my mental health. If they get a good walk they will then sleep most of the day and not interrupt me when I'm working! It also gives me time to organise my thoughts in my head and plan my working day. I work from home 4 days a week so when I'm in my office my family know I'm working and not to bother me. My work day starts with checking my emails, there are usually messages that have arrived overnight because I work with people all over the world who are in different time zones. If there is something urgent then I will deal with that straight away and then I will spend some time planning the rest of my day. I check in with my team as they start work later on in the day to make sure they are OK and sometimes we will spend time together if they have a problem or need my advice. I usually have calls most of my afternoon, we often have our cameras on which is nice because it feels more connected and you can read people's body language and facial expressions which tells you if they are in a good mood or not! The projects that I work on are quite complicated so we have to break down the work into smaller tasks, assign a leader to each sub-team and then I will work with the sub-team leads to coordinate the overall project. We also send out surveys to get people's feedback and use some maths skills to analyse the data. Eventually when all the clinical trial data has been analysed it will be sent for review and we have to wait to hear whether or not it was approved. There is always another project to work on so I dont have much time in-between different projects but I try to find some time to reflect on what worked well, what didn't go so well and what I can do differently next time. This is important to always be trying to improve and I use this in my personal life too."

"A-levels in Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Physics, General StudiesAS-level FrenchBSc (Hons) 2i Combined Biological Sciences (Genetics) with French Post-Graduate Certificate in Applied Medical Statistics"