If, for some unearthly reason, you want to know more about me, here is my tinder bio a little background info:
I’m a data analyst, teacher, self-taught programmer, climber, road cyclist, home baker, and a not very good musician.
I have a PhD in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, UK (2015) where I was looking at the psychological underpinnings of the belief in and experience of paranormal phenomena. In my experience, it sounds way cooler than it really was and, when I realised that, I took a break from academia and spent a couple of years working for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, doing psychometrics and data science.
It didn’t take long before I started missing the stimulating environment and, wanting to give something back, I took on a teaching job back at Edinburgh uni, teaching quantitative research methods, statistics and R programming AKA the sexy stuff.
Five years and a couple of jobs down the line, I found myself an award-winning lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex (still in the UK). But due to several factors, political (12 years of progressively more awful Tory rule), systemic (the commodification of UK higher education), and personal, I think it’s now time to do something else somewhere else.
I’m sad to be leaving a career that’s been my vocation but there are also exciting things on the horizon…
Outside of professional life, I keep a relatively wide range of interests, excelling in none at all.
I discovered climbing around the time I turned 30 and it’s since become my main hobby. That means that I do it often, not that I’m good at it. I’ve climbed 6c+/V5 indoors and, as many will attest, I am a general waste of time and a potential hazard out on the crag. A bit of advice: If you’re also going to discover climbing, make sure you do it earlier in your life than I did, while your body still adapts with relative ease. You’re welcome.
I ride a Trek Émonda S5 road bicycle called Tobey which is a much better bike than I will ever be a cyclist.
Together, we’ve made it atop the Bealach na Bà as part of my attempt at the North Coast 500 route.
It hurt.
It hurt a lot.
Not really a runner, I had the good sense to run the 2019 Edinburgh Marathon and failed my 2:45:00 target by 42 seconds. Yay! I couldn’t walk for the next two days. Five stars, won’t do again.
I have a tendency to embark on random crafts projects that end up consuming my entire being for hours, nay days, on end.
As examples, I’d highlight making an anatomically realistic brain cake for a Halloween bake sale back when I was working for the Royal College of Surgeons or carving an Al Pacino jack-o-lantern shown below. You might argue that Al Pumpkino ended up looking a bit more like Sean Connery and you might have a point.
Still, a pretty mean thing for you to say…
The photos on this page and in the gallery section were taken with the Olympus OMD E-M10 Mark II mirrorless camera with a M.Zuiko 12-40mm F2.8 PRO zoom lens. There was a time when I knew what any of this meant.
To satisfy my musical tendencies and to assuage the guilt of giving up on the violin, I sometimes bother a sunburst Fender Strat I bought when I was 19 with all the money I made that year working in an internet café while at uni, hoping it would help me get as good as John Frusciante.
Spoilers: it didn’t.
Oh, and… I’m a repository of useless trivia so if you’re starting a pub quiz team, holler at me!
I think this is probably enough for you to get a picture of the kind of person I am. If anything, I worry it will give you too accurate a picture…
Swipe left if you’re not gonna message!