Profile

I live in the beautiful old city of Oxford. I share a house with a friend of mine, he has a great sense of humour and we laugh a lot. I have always been really interested in science, or rather just by life and the world, I always want to know how things work and why. I was born in Kenya and grew up there, I miss the sunshine and the avocados.

My first experience with being a scientist was when I was about 10 and I was given a microscope and I could look at feathers and bugs!

When I am not working I love to travel. I learned to scuba dive recently and I now want to go and dive all over the world.

One of the challenges of studying the brain is that there are billions of brain cells (neurons) all connected to each other in a very complicated way. My job is looking at different parts of the brain and examining how the different types of brain cells are connected; so that we can understand a little more about how the brain works, and what changes happen in disease.

Here is a picture of a section from a mouse brain

I am not a morning person so I have a few coffees before doing anything or talking to anyone. I cycle to work everyday through a really pretty park which also helps me to wake up! Here is my beautiful bike

Everyday is really different in the lab. Most days involve some lab work – either doing stuff in the lab or using microscopes to look at different types of brain cells – look at them here

I also train other people in the lab, research technicians and students, to do experiments or to use microscopes. Then I also often have to do some teaching, I teach medical students about neuroscience. I enjoy all of these things and there is never enough time to get bored!

And at the end of the day I cycle home through the park