Profile

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Eliza Hunt

My CV

  • Education:

    Filey Secondary School, Scarborough Sixth Form College, the University of Liverpool, and the University of Bristol

  • Qualifications:

    9 GCSEs in Maths, English, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Spanish, French, Resistant Materials and Geography, OCR Level 2 National First Award in IT GCSE Short Course Religious Studies, A levels in Spanish, Biology and Chemistry, MChem degree in Chemistry.

  • Work History:

    I have been in education for pretty much my whole life, so I haven’t had any long term jobs yet! I used to work in a fish and chip restaurant during school holidays, I have worked at a fairground, I have been a student ambassador giving tours of the university to prospective students, and during my PhD I have done lots of demonstrating which involves teaching students how to carry out experiments in a lab.

  • Current Job:

    Chemical Synthesis PhD student

    • About Me:

      I’m a Yorkshire gal currently living in Bristol. I’m a Chemistry PhD student 👩🏼‍🔬 and work with nanoparticles and sugars 🍬🍰🎂

    • Read more

      I’m originally from Scarborough in the North East, and relocated South West to Bristol three years ago. I love living in Bristol, although I miss my dogs. When I’m not in the lab I enjoy going on walks around the local area, running, and wild swimming 🌊🌊. I love cooking 👩🏼‍🍳 and going out for brunch and dinner.

    • Read more

      This video gives a bit more of an insight into my PhD, skipping to around 18 minutes onwards shows some of types of chemistry that I work with day to day https://youtu.be/pVBC-0jOjKM

       

    • My Typical Day:

      My typical day involves working in a lab, wearing a white coat and goggles and carrying out experiments.

    • Read more

      My typical day involves getting into work at around 9am, then I will often plan a reaction – this is a bit like baking a cake – I look online at different ‘recipes’ (procedures) for the type of reaction I would like to do (or type of cake I would like to bake), then I write down the ingredients (chemicals) that I need to use, and how much of each one that I need, and what the methods are – whether the chemicals need to be heated up or cooled down, or added together in a certain order. When I have finished planning, I go into the lab and ‘bake the cake’ (put the reaction on). Some reactions are quick, but some can take a long time, the reactions I do can take anything from 1 hour to 2 days. I do the reactions inside a fume cupboard, because lots of the chemicals that we use can be harmful to us, and a fume cupboard sucks away any harmful vapours to stop us from breathing them in. This is what my fume cupboard looks like…

      Recently, all of the chemicals that I have been making in the lab are really bright colours – pink, red and orange.

       

    • My Interview

      • What did you want to be after you left school?

        I had no idea (still not really sure)

        Were you ever in trouble at school?

        Very rarely, but I remember getting in trouble for singing in lessons occasionally (dreams of being a west end star shattered by having a terrible voice!)

        Who is your favourite singer or band?

        I listen to lots of different music, but always enjoy singing (badly) along to Taylor Swift

        What's your favourite food?

        So hard to choose because I'm such a foodie, but for savory maybe gnocchi or pasta with pesto, goats cheese, and roast cherry tomatoes, for dessert I'm a big fan of anything with chocolate and salted caramel, or maybe the olive oil and pistachio panna cotta from Pasta Loco.

        Tell us a joke.

        Q: Why can you never trust atoms? A: They make up everything! (definitely just googled 'chemistry jokes', please don't judge me!)

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