Profile
Kimberley Bennett
My CV
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Education:
I went to school at New Barn Infants and Juniors in Shaw, near Oldham in Greater Manchester (people from Shaw still say we’re from Lancashire though….). My secondary school was Blue Coat School, Oldham where I got 10 GCSEs (including the awful dual award science which was a really poor prepaprtation for the challenge of A level chemistry and biology) and 4 A levels (chemistry, biology, geography and general studies).
I went to St Andrews University in Scotland. My second choice was Southampton so my mum thought I wanted to get as far away as possible. That wasn’t the case at all. I just wanted to study both geology and biology at the time and there were not many places that offered the combination I wanted. I loved the fact St Andrews was a little town surrounded by lovely countryside and right by the sea, with a really ancient feel to it. I could really imagine myself being happy there even though it was a long way from home. The course offered very flexible choices on the modules, which was fantastic for me. In the end I graduated with an honours degree in Biology. I loved my course and my final year project on diving in elephant seals set me up for my career as a physiologist working mostly with marine mammals. I was based at the Sea Mammal Research Unit, which had just moved to the uni at the same time as me, and that’s where I stayed to do my PhD on diving and fasting physiology in seal pups.
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Qualifications:
10 GCSEs: A grades. Dual award science, geography, maths, English literature, English language, history, religious education, art, German (1993)
4 A levels: biology (A); chemistry (B); geography (A), general studies (A) (1995)
BSc(Hons) first class in Biology (1999)
PhD an the causes of body composition changes during the postweaning fast and consequences for the diving physiology of grey seal pups (2005)
Post graduate certificate in academic practice (Plymouth University 2012)
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Work History:
My first ever job was as a Saturday shop assistant in the Yarn Barn, a wool shop in Shaw. I loved it but never learnt to knit! I worked there from age 14 ill I went to university. These days I love crafting. I have always loved to sew but more recently learnt to crochet and now I can’t stop… Its a great way to relax and be creative.
At uni, I didn’t work in term time but worked all summer each year to pay the bills. The first year I worked as a mark checker at the NEAB in Manchester. It was a long commute in each morning and we all had to sit at desks in silence like a giant exam hall. So I spent all day with only a lunch break to talk to any one else. I found that really tough and very isolating. We just checked that all the exam scripts had been marked and the marks added up right. We had to do it as fast as possible to make sure the GCSE results could be released on time!
My other summer jobs were pretty varied and most of them hard, low paid, dirty and very very boring, usually as a warehouse operative or on production lines. At the time there were a lot of this sort of job near where I lived in the old cotton mills that had been converted to warehouses. I am at least the 3rd generation of my family to have had a job at the Briar and Lilac mills.
My PhD was a great combination of lab and field work and I had to get up to speed with statistics! During my PhD, I got a stipend to live on (rather than a monthly wage). It was about £7000 per year. We were paid each quarter and I usually was down to my last few pence and very relieved when the next cheque arrived. I have loads of stories from my PhD that would take up too much space here….
While I waited for my viva (the oral exam you do to ‘defend’ your thesis) I went as a research assistant to South Georgia in the Southern Ocean to work on a project attaching satellite tags to southern elephant seals. The tags could collect information about the diving behaviour and location of the seals, but also the properties of the water that the seals were diving in to build up a more compete picture of the oceanography of the Southern Ocean. My job was as part of the team to catch and tag the elephant seals. They were soooooo much bigger than the grey seals I had worked with during my PhD. Every day we were surrounded by fur seals and penguins. It was a very special and unique experience that i will never forget. I was the only woman on board the ship that took us there and the only female research team member (of a team of 4).
When I finished my PhD, I got a few small, short term contracts helping other people in the department with their projects: I helped ‘stitch’ together the photos from the seal surveys run by SMRU to make sure when they do the population counts that they aren’t double counting anything; I ran some sea lion survival models ; I helped get an exhibition on marine mammals displayed in different places; I contributed to a database that was going to be used by the US Navy to avoid areas where there are marine mammals when they test sonar. These were all interesting but it was always worrying where I was going to get my next salary from.
I got a job after a few months at Abertay University to teach physiology for 2 terms. That was a real baptism of fire in terms of teaching because I’d only ever taught small group tutorials or helped out in labs before. As a teaching assistant I was designing and running lectures, labs and tutorials and doing marking and pastoral care too. It was pretty overwhelming, but it was interesting too because I got to revisit and learn a lot of fascinating human physiology.
I realised I loved teaching but didn’t want that to be the only thing I did. I also needed to get back into research and improve my molecular biology skills, so I then got a job as a postdoctoral research associate at Ninewells hospital and medical school. I worked on a research project investigating what switches on and off the genes involved in glucose production in cells. It was a another very big switch: I had gone from a lab and field based PhD, to intense teaching, to working in biomedical lab based at a hospital. I enjoyed it but really missed the field work and the ability to answer questions on wildlife biology.
I saw a job advert posted by the Society for Experimental Biology to do a fellowship in Canada that was part time teachign and part time research on comparative physiology. I was very excited about it but also very nervous about the big move. My partner was very supportive and in fact said he would be mad at me if I didn’t apply. I applied and I got it. That was the start of 2 wonderful years working at Mount Allison university in Canada. It was hard to be so far away from my friends and family, but I got to visit some amazing places and made life long friends there. I set up a collaboration with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and got to go out with them to work on the grey seals in the Northumberland Strait. I even got to ride in a coast guard helicopter! The air temperature was -14 Celsius, which is soooo much colder than the field work even on South Georgia (we were there in summer) and we had to be careful that the blood samples we took didn’t freeze and burst all the red blood cells.
As my contract was coming to and end in Canada, I saw a lectureship advertised at Plymouth University back in the UK, which was a chance to move back to the UK but also continue to teach and research in marine mammal physiology. I was shocked but delighted to be offered the job and I worked there for 4 years as deputy programme leader for the Marine biology BSc.
I was always looking for an opportunity to move closer to my partner: living apart from someone you love for 6 years is really really hard and very emotionally exhausting. I got a job back at Abertay University, where I had worked nearly 10 years previously. They needed someone who could teach on the biomedical science and environmental science technology degree programmes and my background in research and teaching in physiology was a good fit. i also had just won a big grant to continue my research and was able to bring the funding for that project to the university. I’m still there teaching and researching in physiology and really loving my job (but really wishing there was more time for all the different bits of it)
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Current Job:
Senior lecturer
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About Me:
I love biology and the investigation part of science. I love to go out walking with my camera, noticing big landscapes, spotting wild animals and taking photos of creatures and plants great and small.
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Read more
I live just outside St Andrews with my partner, Simon. We live in a cottage with a small garden and I love to watch the birds that visit the feeder. We put up a bird box this year so I am hoping for ‘new neighbours’. We can see fields from the kitchen window and we often see deer in the distance.
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My Typical Day:
I don’t have a typical day. Most days I am super busy rushing from one activity to the other. I have to try to balance research with teaching and administrative jobs. This can be teaching in lectures, tutorials or labs; designing new learning activities (modules or individual classes); marking; meeting students; meeting other staff about research or teaching; reading new research in my field or on topics I am teaching; writing up my own research; statistics; planning new research; writing proposals for funding.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Friendly
What did you want to be after you left school?
That depends on when you asked me: graphic designer; forensic scientist; screen writer were all on the list
Were you ever in trouble at school?
not really.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I like all kinds of bands!
What's your favourite food?
Chocolate
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I would wish for more time
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