Core contributors

The core contributors to the Vitae research staff blog  represent a wide spectrum of disciplines, experiences, nationalities and current locations. They are:

Sarah Davies

I’m a scholar of public engagement with science and technology. In the past I’ve studied – and taught – science communication and worked at the Science Museum, London, but my research now focuses on public dialogue on emerging technologies. I’ve been part of a multi-partner European project on the ethics of nanotechnology and a Fellow of Beacon North East for Public Engagement, and am currently a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Arizona State University.

Hannah Dee

I am a computer vision researcher, coming to the end of a 1year post-doc in Grenoble, in the French Alps. I've also done post-docs in Leeds and Kingston in the UK, and have been on a researcher exchange to Sao Paulo, Brazil. My research interests are in the modelling of human behaviour from video, particularly in crowded scenes, and I've recently started working in face recognition. I am deputy chair of the British Computer Society’s group for women-in-technology BCSWomen, and do a lot of voluntary work through this supporting and promoting technical careers for women and girls. My personal blog is: http://www.hannahdee.eu/blog

Liz Dodson

I am a Chartered Psychologist with a background in the field of acquired brain injury. A large proportion of adult acquired brain injuries are caused by road accidents and I therefore also developed a keen interest in road accident prevention. For the past five years I have worked at Loughborough University as a senior researcher within an on-scene crash investigation team. I specialize in accident causation and reconstruction, with a particular interest in road user behaviour. I am also co-chair of the UK Research Staff Association.

Andy Humphrey

I'm a bio-organic chemist with 13 years' post-qualification experience of research in both the academic sector and a government research institute. My area of special interest is the way that bioactive molecules interact with living organisms, but in practice most of my working day is spent in an organic chemistry lab synthesising molecules which may be precursors or mimics of these bioactive molecules. I'm currently at Bradford University working on a medicinal chemistry project aimed at anti-cancer drug discovery. I'm also a trade union rep for UCU, and spend a chunk of my working week providing one-to-one support for UCU members who may have experienced difficulties at work, or helping my union colleagues in their negotiations with university management. My third career is as a freelance writer, which has yielded several poetry prizes and a number of published short stories, poems and articles.

Matthew Salois

I am an applied economist with specialization in econometrics (the application of statistical techniques to assess economic relationships) and welfare economics (the investigation of how private or public actions change the distribution of social well-being). I am a US native and originally lived and studied at the University of Florida. Currently, I am a post-doc at the University of Reading examining the health effectiveness of fat-taxes and slim-subsidies and their welfare impacts. The project involves first estimating a model of food demand to simulate the effects of food taxes and subsidies on nutrient intakes in England and to assess any impact on health. Second, measures of economic welfare are computed to examine how fat-taxes and slim-subsidies alter the distribution of expenditure and the impact on low-income households.

Tennie Videler

I am the Vitae programme manager for researchers. Before that I was a researcher, completing a doctorate and a dozen years of post-doctoral research in different fields of structural biology (mostly NMR and mass spectrometry of intact macromolecular complexes) .

I am the person in Vitae dedicated to making contact with researchers, both postgraduates and research staff. I write and commission resources for researchers and speak at events. I am active in creating a research staff community, setting up this research staff blog and supporting the setting up of the UKRSA. I have also been involved in research, such as the ‘What do researchers do?’ publications on the first employment destinations of doctoral graduates and on their careers stories.