Dr Candice Keane

Dr Candice Keane is the Enterprise and Impact Support Coordinator for the MAPS Faculty.

Candice joined the faculty in October 2019, having previously worked as a Healthcare Scientist at Public Health England, where she worked on developing and evaluating diagnostic tests for respiratory and blood borne pathogens. Prior to working at PHE she was a PhD student under the supervision of Rachel McKendry at the LCN, researching rapid tests for detecting influenza infection. Before this, she worked in the NHS for a few years as a healthcare scientist within the microbiology diagnostic labs.

Candice has always been passionate about translational research and science that makes a difference to people’s lives, and so her current role is about helping MAPS academics to engage more in enterprise activities and so enable their work to have a wider impact. As part of her job, she helps to organise enterprise events, works with innovation and enterprise to promote and facilitate building connections and collaborations with industry and external partners, and raises awareness about industry-related funding and opportunities. She also helps to gather evidence and writes impact case studies for the research excellence framework.

Her current work is quite a departure from her previous job in a laboratory, but she has enjoyed engaging with researchers who are passionate about their work and the impact it is having. With a background in microbiology and diagnostics, Candice is working a lot outside her area of expertise and her comfort zone, but has enjoyed the refreshing challenge and continuously learning something new. Due to coronavirus and working from home, her job has turned out to be quite different from what she was expecting, but she is looking forward to discovering innovative ways to promote enterprise within the faculty virtually - for the time being.

Candice was born and raised in London but ventured outside the M25 to complete her BSc in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Manchester. This was followed by an MSc in Clinical Microbiology at QMUL. Although she may be slightly biased, she feels that London is a great city to live in. Under normal circumstances, London has so much to see, hear, taste, smell and many adventures are to be had. She feels lucky to call it home! 

Her non-work life has changed a lot since coronavirus. Prior to coronavirus she was down at Bloomsbury fitness a few times a week attending their fitness classes, socialising with friends, travelling, yoga and silversmithing. However, since coronavirus, she has spent a lot of time in parks and exploring her local area on foot or by bike. She has also enjoyed seeing everyone utilise outdoor public spaces more, realising how fortunate we are to have access to such great green spaces in London. She has also recently started to learn how to knit, which has sometimes been a bit of a challenge. However, with winter coming she has a feeling that the gardening will be taking more of a back seat and that she'll be spending more time on her knitting.