Spotlight on Dan Martin

What is your role and what does it involve?

I am one of the Events Managers in UCL's Corporate Events team, and one of my main roles is to programme and manage UCL's public Lunch Hour Lecture series.

With Lunch Hour Lectures running at UCL for nearly 70 years, my job is to make sure they continue to interest and inspire UCL and public audiences alike by covering a wide range of topics and themes like World AIDS Day, Black History Month and Brain Awareness Week. In the past year alone, more than 8,000 people watched a Lunch Hour Lecture live, with more than 100,000 more watching online.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I've been working at UCL for just more than three years. Previously, I worked at the train company First Capital Connect, managing their stakeholder events (with all the rail user groups, local councillors and enthusiasts that involves) and their internal events programme, which encompassed big family fun days at local theme parks and large internal management conferences at the Emirates Stadium.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

At UCL, my biggest achievements so far have involved Lunch Hour Lectures. The first one has been implementing the use of social media to promote the series to hundreds of thousands of viewers world-wide via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The next has been taking the series on tour to the British Museum - something we hope to repeat in June 2012, and the most recent has been working with UCL Multimedia to ensure that all Lunch Hour Lectures are subtitled online going forward.

What is your life like outside UCL?

I am a bit of a theatre fan, and with my partner working for one of the big London theatre producers, I do my best to accompany him to as many opening nights as possible.