Who am I?

My Mission

Solve hard problems and make new discoveries.

Explore the wonders of the Universe.

Share knowledge.

Inspire curiosity and compassion in others.

Do the least harm and the most good I can for the planet and its inhabitants.

Search for life on other worlds.

My Background

Originally from the beautiful Shropshire countryside of England, I lived in Norway for twelve years and have recently relocated back to the U.K. I have two hyper-curious children, a husband and two cats.

Education

I have a Ph.D. in complex systems (computational biology) from the University of York, England, and studied biology, maths, physics and astronomy during my undergraduate degree at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, where I graduated with a 1st class honours degree in biology.

Research

I spent over twelve years in academia where my research took me into diverse fields of study including (in chronological order):

Marine mammal biology (at the Sea Mammal Research Unit in St. Andrews)
Computational biology, protein folding, artificial life, complex systems analysis and plant biology (at the University of York),
Genomics, marine molecular developmental biology and RNA biology (at the Computational Biology Unit and the Sars Centre for Marine Molecular Biology in Bergen, Noway).

Machine learning

Three and a half years ago I put down the pipettes, wrote my last line of bioinformatics code and entered the exciting field of artificial intelligence and data science. Instead of aligning RNA to genomes to find patterns of gene expression in zooplankton, I now apply cutting-edge A.I. technology to enormous data sets to solve a wide range of problems. I was recently named one of Norway’s 50 leading women in tech 2021.

I worked as a senior consultant in machine learning at Sonat Consulting in Bergen, Norway for three and a half years and am now a director and co-founder of Octofox Ltd, an A.I. company based in the U.K. Clients I’ve worked for include an international, world-leading engineering company, a rapidly expanding FinTech startup, a data-driven service company, one of the largest renewable energy companies in Norway and a company that develops digital mental healthcare interventions.

Academia and industry are two different worlds and each have a lot to explore!

Science communication and outreach

Inspired by homeschooling my children during the COVID-19-induced lockdown in Norway last year, I started a blog and community, called Pale Blue Marbles, to help parents cultivate their children’s curiosity in science through astrobiology. I write in-depth articles that go deep into complex topics within biology and astronomy, with STEM activity ideas to engage young children.

I also communicate science through @palebluemarbles on social media.

Writing

I love to write and enjoy writing in all its forms from scientific publications and documentation for code to poetry and science fiction for children.

Scientific papers

I spent many years writing scientific papers and have published in leading peer-reviewed journals. You can see my publication list here.

Popular science

I write astrobiology articles for lay audiences – both adults and children – on my Pale Blue Marbles site.

As part of my work in machine learning, I have also written articles on artificial intelligence and machine learning. You can read two of my articles on AI here and here.

Report writing and documentation

I have extensive experience in writing formal reports and documentation as part of my role as a consultant and data scientist.

Children’s fiction

I also write children’s fantasy and science fiction with magic, dragons and adventures in time and space.