Profile

I teach molecular physiology to undergraduate and masters students. I am interested in how activity/inactivity, exercise and diet affect skeletal muscle function. My research is interested in studying how genes, proteins and enzymes respond to exercise and diet, and how this response changes the size and function of skeletal muscle. We apply this research to try and understand what makes skeletal muscle adapt, whether it be an athlete trying to improve performance, or an elderly individual trying to improve the quality of daily living. Skeletal muscle is vital for health span, and exercise/activity one of the key factors that maintains skeletal muscle function.

I like the fact that my typical day is a mixture of teaching and research. This means that i get to interact with numerous groups of people. I teach to students across our undergraduate degree, so this may be basic lectures about physiology (1st year), right through to discussing gene regulation in skeletal muscle (3rd year, MSc students). I enjoy teaching and trying to translate my research into a learnable product. It is enjoying seeing students progress and understand the challenges they face and how they tackle learning. My research excites me and allows me to discover things in the lab on a regular basis. Supervising PhD students is fantastic and allows me to mentor and develop their research skills.

We try as often as possible to run outreach activities where we can discuss our research with the general public. This means that i get to do interactive sessions with visiting secondary schools, information sessions in and around the university, in addition to national outreach events (i.e. British Science Festival). We are trying to work out how to get the population more active, no matter their background and interests, social status, finances. I would use the money to purchase equipment that can measure the activity in skeletal muscle, so that we can visually demonstrate and inform how daily activity (standing vs sitting, exercise of varying modes/intensities) can increase skeletal muscle health and function.