Dashboard – Molecule Zone

About Me:

I live in Glasgow with my partner and my cat. I am a chemist and I like reading and going to the cinema in my free time.
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I come from Fife originally but have been living in Glasgow since starting my undergraduate degree at Strathclyde.
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I am a chemist. I study how chemical reactions work to see if they can be used to make useful molecules like medicines. My aim is to find ways of doing chemical reactions that don’t hurt the environment.
My Typical Day:

My typical day starts with a cup of coffee then getting on the train into work. I do experiments in the lab and sometimes on a computer. I have lunch and then go back into the lab to check my experiments. When my work is finished I get on the train home and go and cuddle my cat.
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Sometimes my work involves making molecules to do more experiments on. Sometimes I am using molecules I have made before or bought in to look at how fast they react, what colour the reactions go and what happens to them when they are mixed with different things. I share my results by making them into graphs so that I can show people if they are fast or slow.
What I'd do with the prize money:

I would spend the prize money on materials to go and do some experiments in schools.

Education:

Bell Baxter High School, Cupar

University of Strathclyde, Glasgow – for my undergraduate degree

University of Strathclyde, Glasgow – for my PhD
Qualifications:

Standard Grades:

English, Maths, Chemistry, Music, Art, Drama, German, Physics

Intermediate 2:

Spanish

Highers:

Maths, Chemistry, Music, German, Physics
Work History:

Retail assistant in a jewellery shop – a part time job when I left school

Retail assistant in Greggs the bakers – a part time job while at uni

Laboratory demonstrator at the university – a part time job while doing my PhD

Post-doctoral researcher at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich – doing chemistry at a university in Germany

Manufacturing Support at Syngenta in Grangemouth – helping the manufacturing plant run smoothly making agrochemical compounds (molecules to help plants grow healthily so farmers can grow lots of food)
Current Job:

Post-doctoral researcher at University of Strathclyde – research into green chemistry for synthesis

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Susie Wood