Question: hello, one of the three words you said you would describe yourself with was multitasker, how would you say this helps you when you are carrying out or designing experiments?

Jenni Tilley answered on 20 Jun 2011:

Being a multitasker helps me enormously, but it can also be a pain because it manes I get bored easily!

In my research I work in 4 buildings across three departments and 2 universities. I use lots of different kit and multitasking allows me to sit taking picutre with one microscope while analysing some pictures from another experiment and answer questions on this at the same time. Although, I designed my own project, so maybe I was just playing to my strengths!

Multitasking also helped in my undergraduate degree. I couldn’t chose between maths, physics and chemistry and so decided to do materials science – this let me study all of those three, plussome engineering and some biology. At the same time as lectures and tutorials, we had to do practical classes and course work, team design projects and business plans. I was doing all of this whilst being in a choir, playing sport and having a social life, so being a multitasker was a definate advantage!