“Like magic, we can uncover data and insights that can potentially change lives.”
What’s your educational background?
It’s very varied! In a way you could say I was brought up as a scientist; my dad was an agricultural scientist and as a kid I’d sit at his desk in the laboratory while he was running experiments. My original degree was in Psychology, and three decades later I’m doing a PhD. My research is all about how Open Access is transforming the way that we do research, and why it’s accelerating research in some fields and not in others.
How did you get into this field? What’s your career history?
My love of books led me into publishing and after a few years I joined one of the world’s largest academic book publishers. I helped to deliver their first ecommerce pipeline, then joined their research group for developing new technologies. On the back of that, I also spent two years working on ORCID.
What’s a great project you’ve worked on for Dimensions?
Joining Digital Science when we were beginning to build Dimensions was like being on a rocketship. The trend towards more open access research is great, but it’s not much use unless it’s also discoverable – and Dimensions is an incredibly important tool because it helps anybody to discover and access a researcher’s work. I’m very proud to have been there at its birth and to have helped it grow up!
One of my proudest projects is our work with the Rare Diseases division of a multinational pharma corporation. Compared with areas like cancer or cardiac conditions, rare diseases have historically been rather neglected. They need the same insights as everyone else. And I like working with them to make sure that they are on a level playing-field with the rest.
Thanks to advances in biomedicine, we’re now seeing some revolutionary treatments coming through – for example, a transformative way of managing haemophilia. We helped our customer by building a targeted solution that gives them the information they need to understand what publishing strategies and venues will best communicate their research, what their competitors are doing, and so on.
From a business angle, these kinds of insights help the Rare Diseases division level the playing-field with more prominent diseases. From a human angle – quite simply, they help to improve people’s health and lives.
What do you love about your job?
I love that we make people happy through discovery. Like magic, we can uncover data they don’t even know is there. And from that data we can extract insights that support them in their goals and can potentially change lives. It feels like digging in a secret garden and finding nuggets of hidden wisdom – that’s really exciting to me. It’s like being back in my dad’s lab as a kid, helping him solve problems. That’s why Digital Science works for me as an organization – we’re curious, problem-solving people who delight in creating insights, and wisdom and joy.
Fun fact that people might not know about you?
My theatrical side! I founded a theatre company, have been a director, producer, writer and actor, and am using my spare time to act in murder mysteries. Last Saturday I was “Detective Inspector Hastings”, entertaining a big hen party in a mansion in the Cotswolds.
If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?
To have a whole other brain so I could think even more than I already do. Failing that, to shoulder-press 50 kilos. I really struggle with my shoulder press.