Author: Martha Salhotra

Georgina Wildman, Library Manager & Liaison Librarian (Medicine), Library Services

“I’m always proud to see MBBS students become junior doctors and to see ground-breaking research by the familiar faces of our library users reported in the news.”

I started my career at the age of seven as a student librarian at primary school – clearly it was a formative experience as I’ve been working as a qualified librarian since 2008. I’ve been at Imperial Library Services for eight years. The pay, conditions and technology have vastly improved from that primary school library, but I do miss the special gold “Librarian” badge… (more…)

Joel McConnell, Executive Director of Marketing, Recruitment & Admissions, Business School

“I’m part of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Forum and am currently the co-Chair of Imperial 600, the College’s staff network for LGBTQ+ staff, postgraduate students and their allies.” 

Celebrating LGBT History Month

While my early career experience was in pharmaceuticals and financial services in both Canada and the US, I decided to work in Higher Education after completing my MBA at IE Business School in Madrid.

Since then I’ve held several senior director roles, primarily focused on leading market expansion and international recruitment, along with corporate partnerships and alumni outreach. I’ve been a bit of an avid learner too, having gone on to complete several postgraduate programmes and executive courses at school like Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Cambridge’s Judge Business School, and the Booth School of Business, at the University of Chicago. (more…)

S L Reid-Collins, Postgraduate, Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication

“I am proud to be queer – it has given me the drive to do as much as I can to combat any biases and injustices within science and healthcare.”

Celebrating LGBT History Month

I joined the College’s Science Communication Master’s programme in September last year. The course fits me perfectly and allows me to combine my love of writing, investigating and the sciences. Prior to joining the course I’d studied journalism at undergraduate level, and was always keen to follow this into science communication and reporting. (more…)

Alex Ashbee, Careers Events and Marketing Assistant, Careers Service

“It is really rewarding to organise events that our students get a lot out of, and that employers continue to attend because they value the talent at Imperial.”

I graduated in 2008 with a BA in Fine Art and have since worked in a diverse range of places, including the Houses of Parliament, the Natural History Museum and a rare stamp and coin specialist business. Working in this pretty eclectic mix has helped me develop a broad range of skills, and I have really enjoyed being able to meet and work with so many different characters.

I started working at Imperial in 2016 as a Marketing and Events Assistant in the Careers Service. My role is varied and can mean juggling a lot of disparate tasks, which is what attracted me to the position. My focus revolves around producing and designing our printed and online resources for students, assisting in the organisation of on-campus careers events and establishing good relationships with employers. I have really enjoyed working to develop our Careers Service’s visual identity into something that makes us stand out and attracts students to our service, and I hope to continue to evolve our identity onto different platforms. (more…)

Dr Rebecca Bell, Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

“My research involves investigating how continents rip apart to form new oceans, and what controls the size and style of earthquakes at subduction zones.”

My road to Imperial started with a childhood interest in picking up pebbles on the beach and making plaster cast fossils with my dad. At school I enjoyed maths, physics and chemistry, but did not enjoy any of them enough on their own to commit to doing them at university!

Fortunately, one day I sat in my school’s library and discovered a subject called Earth Science in a university prospectus. I had never heard of it before, but it fit all of my interests perfectly, and I have never looked back. (more…)

Sherifat Yesufu-Rufai, Research Postgraduate, Department of Chemical Engineering

“I didn’t realise how supportive of parenthood Imperial was – from the nursing room to the childcare centre. I immensely appreciate the College’s understanding that you can work in academia and be a parent.”

I was born and raised in Nigeria. I received a BEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Benin, and subsequently obtained an MSc in Chemical Process Engineering from UCL. I started my PhD at Imperial in September 2017, receiving a scholarship from the Department of Chemical Engineering in collaboration with Shell. (more…)

David Tyoember, Undergraduate, Department of Chemistry

“I feel that Imperial’s willingness to support new initiatives is something I have benefited from, especially as this year I was able to start up a new Rap Society.”

During my time at Imperial, I’ve been involved in a few different extracurricular activities. In my first year, I developed an interest in under-representation in certain spaces, and decided to run for the position of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Officer. I also took up a role in the College’s Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team, as well as becoming the Vice President (VP) of Diversity within the Investment Society, which was a new role at the time. (more…)

Moira Sarsfield, Principal Learning Technologist, Faculty of Natural Sciences

“It is a very exciting time to be involved with supporting teaching and learning in the College. It is a fantastic challenge, and really motivating to be involved with improving the learning opportunities for Imperial students.”

I am a scientist at heart with a degree in genetics from the University of Aberdeen (my home town). After university, I worked in STEMM publishing, then as an e-learning project manager, producing CD-ROMs and websites for medical continuing professional development, and supplementary materials for university-level textbooks.

I began the third stage of my career in 2003, joining Imperial as one of the first learning technologists in the College – at the time, it was a part-time role in what is now called the Department of Life Sciences. During this period, I also worked with a consortium of universities and the Royal College of Nursing on development and delivery of an online degree programme for healthcare professionals. (more…)

Jack Elkes, Clinical Trials Statistician, School of Public Health

“I appreciate the flexibility, the work attitude and opportunities for development at Imperial. I am very proud to work for Imperial, a university at the forefront of research.”

Before joining Imperial, I worked as a biostatistician at IQVIA on a large scope of projects in various disease areas and trial phases. I have always enjoyed using an analytical approach to problem solving, which is why I studied for an MSc in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I have always been interested in healthcare, so before I became a statistician I undertook a BSc in Biomedical Sciences at Brighton University.

At Imperial I have two roles. Firstly, I work as a clinical trials statistician, working collaboratively with other researchers to set up, run and analyse novel interventions to evaluate their benefit in patient care. My day can include designing a new study, writing analysis plans and programming statistical analysis. (more…)

Dr Thulasi Mylvaganam, Lecturer in Control and Multi-Agent Systems, Department of Aeronautics

“Being Norwegian, I have a great love for the outdoors and I will search for any excuse to be on a mountain! I like to spend my time hiking, running, rock climbing and traveling… and I absolutely love snow – it’s magical!”  

I first came to Imperial to complete my undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) back in 2006. I’ve always had a special interest in mathematics, so once I got my first introduction to control engineering in my second year, I was smitten. I completed my PhD in nonlinear control with Professor Alessandro Astolfi in EEE, and I am now a lecturer in the Department of Aeronautics.

My job involves doing and supervising research on various topics in control engineering. We follow an abstract approach: we describe a system (any system!) with a mathematical model and develop systematic methods to design feedback to make the system behave in a desired manner. The abstract approach makes control engineering very powerful, which is why it is everywhere! (more…)