Profile

I am from Minnesota in the United States, but went to university in Rochester, New York. I studied abroad for a term in Scotland during my studies and fell in love with the country, so I came back for my PhD and now work here.

I love to get out into the countryside for some hillwalking (hiking), but also enjoy some water sports, including kayaking, paddle boarding, and white water rafting (when I can). I am now learning to scuba dive and will be travelling to Aruba in the Caribbean in February for my first scuba diving holiday!

I love to cook and bake and often bring cupcakes into work with me where I use my colleagues as guinea pigs for my new flavours. I also enjoy baking bread (the kneading is really good for stress relief) and pretty much anything else you can think of. I especially enjoy cooking and baking with my friends and family. Even though we’re thousands of miles away, my dad and I still like to cook together over FaceTime.

I manage a project funded by the Scottish Prison Service where we analyse drug samples seized in the prisons, whether they are from prisoners, prisoners’ cells, the post, visitors, or just found around the estate. These samples can be traditional drug samples, such as tablets and powders, but we also get a lot of different materials, such as clothing, paper, shoes, and vape pens. We also assist the prisons with their in-field testing or screening for drugs. All of this work is to understand in near-real time the drugs being used by prisoners, as well as the mixtures of drugs being used (poly-drug use), methods of use of the drugs (smoking, vaping, eating/drinking, etc.), and methods for the smuggling of drugs into the prisons. This work not only helps the prisons to stop drugs from entering, but also helps to inform alcohol and addiction services, as well as the medical staff at the prison, about harms of the drugs currently circulating.

As the manager of the prison project, my day can vary significantly; however, my day always starts with checking in with the analyst who processes all of the prison samples and helping to process any sample results we have. After that, my day could be taken up with doing experiments in the lab, writing reports of our findings for the Prison Service, writing papers to be published in peer review journals, or in meetings with prison staff or research collaborators. On some days it is a combination of all four.