Bangor University, then the University of Wales, Bangor, has been instrumental in changing my life. I grew up in a small town (then a village) called Portskewett in South Wales (between Chepstow and Newport) where the world was very small but moved to Chester for my A’Level studies after my Dad gained a new job there. I decided to study at Bangor for my Bachelors degree (1995-98) because Bangor to Chester wasn't too far by train, so I could get home easily if needed – fortunately, this was rarely needed and I sampled all that University Life had to offer at Bangor!
I began a BSc Joint Honours in Marine Biology and Biochemistry, but after the end of the 1st year realised that my brain was far more suited to Biochemistry, so switched to straight Biochemistry over that summer holidays - my Academic Tutors Prof Deri Tomos and Dr John Gaunt were instrumental in facilitating this move. Indeed, Prof Tomos' contacts in Cambridge ultimately resulted in me being head-hunted for a PhD down in the Department of Plant Science at Cambridge University following my graduation ceremony at Bangor in July 1998, where I also received the William Charles Evans Memorial Prize for the highest marks in the cohort.
My 1st year of PhD at Cambridge 1998-99 made me realise that although I loved learning about Biochemistry, this wasn't something that I wanted to do as a career, so I wrote-up for an MPhil in my second year and moved to the University of Kent at Canterbury for an MSc in Computer Science (Sept 2000) to learn a new set of skills that would facilitate a move into industry. I was then recruited by Oracle Corporation on their graduate training programme, initially as an Applications Technology Consultant (2001-2004) and then Project Manager (2004-2009). Life at Oracle was amazing, but after too many nights staying in hotels and using planes, trains and automobiles, I decided to jump back to University Life to facilitate a career change into academia. Due to my education in Biochemistry from Bangor and Computer Science from Canterbury, I decided on an MRes in Computational Biology to leverage both sets of skills and knowledge (2009-2010 at Department of Biology at University of York), then a PhD in Computational Immunology (2010-2013, Department of Computer Science at University of York). Finding a Post-Doctoral Research position in Computational Biology was difficult in the early 2010s, so I applied for a special ESRC-funded Junior Research Fellowship in Management/Business, which was targeting career-changers who wanted to move into academia who were also discipline changers with a PhD outside of Business/Management. I therefore joined Lancaster University Management School (Department of Management Science) in October 2013 as a Junior Research Fellow and have been promoted up to Senior Lecturer.
The next promotion to Full Professor will be a little harder though, because my PhD in Computational Immunology is often seen (mistakenly in my humble opinion, but that’s a long story) as a little too far away from Business/Management. As such, along with focusing on my research into Complex Social and Socio-Technical Systems, I'm now beginning to think seriously about an application for PhD at Bangor Business School through Method E (previously called PhD by Published Work). I will need to publish 1-2 more papers from my existing project into conflict within large software engineering projects, and also to collaborate with faculty members at Bangor Business School, but it's a really exciting prospect to be 'coming home' so to speak. The route I'm choosing is part-time for 1-year in order to develop a 5,000-10,000 overview/critical analysis of my 6-7 publications that I will be submitting as evidence of my research skills and competence. I’m hopeful that this will open up a number of doors for future promotions and interesting career moves. Finally, and as an aside, the Bangor PhD gowns are also much nicer than my York ones!