I have always been motivated to do things that haven’t been done before and to have a positive impact on society, so it was these motivations that drove me to complete my PhD in materials chemistry in 2013.
My research was tackling the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, and I was developing new materials that would capture carbon dioxide. Whilst I enjoyed my time in research, I felt that I could have greater impact outside of academia and so decided to take the highly numerate and analytical skills I had developed and apply them to policy making in the Civil Service, driving evidence based decision-making in a number of teams across Health and Defence.
My passion for doing things differently and my domain expertise leading me to helping set up the Futures Innovation team at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, and I am currently using the skills I developed in this role to help set up the data innovation team at Experian – focusing on products and services that drive financial inclusion in emerging markets.