Staff Spotlight: Meet the Joint Faculties Operations Manager

I am currently on a secondment, until December 2019, working as the Joint Faculties Operations Manager. This involves working with the two Directors of Operations for A&H and SHS, and supporting the work of the Joint Faculties in various operational/strategic activities; Estates, HR and Finance, for example. I am getting involved in lots of different projects, so it is a varied role and exposing me to lots of new areas of UCL, which is exciting.

I have been at UCL since February 2018,  I had been managing the AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership: The London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP) until I started my secondment in June 2019. LAHP is a consortium of 8 HEIs and currently funds 300+ PhD students, so it was a very busy role.

Recently I have been supporting the Faculty in arrangements for year-end, and the one thing I am looking forward to getting on with is the planning for the next PS Staff Conference.

My favourite album – is probably too hard for me choose, I always have music playing at home, and what I have on repeat changes quite often. But I can give you a few, all of which I go back to time and time again:

Arcade Fire –  Funeral
The Mystery Jets – Serotonin
The Distillers – Coral Fang
Kate Bush – The Whole Story

I best leave it at that for now, but I could go on…

My favourite film is The Sound of Music - perfect to sing along to and Julie Andrews is an amazing Maria! My Great-Aunt is a Nun so the film always kind of reminds me of her.

I love to read, but my favourite novel is probably Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – my Grandma gave me my first copy when I was younger which had belonged to her Great-Aunt, turns out this was only Volume 1 (as it was originally published in two volumes) so for a long time I never read the second volume which is quite a lot sadder than the first volume (no spoilers from me!). However, I still think it is a really lovely book - the first couple of chapters are set at Christmas time so I always like to re-read it at the time of year.

This is another really hard one…I am not sure if I would want to meet anyone famous as I imagine it might be really awkward. So perhaps I will just say family and friends all together for a dinner party. I would host as I love cooking for other people.  

Take advantage of all the opportunities that come your way, even if they seem scary at the time.

I get a bit over-excited about public transport – I love a good tram or funicular in particular. If I am visiting a new city, I like to try out all the forms of public transport available.

St Pancras Train Station, I love the architecture of the building and I think that train stations, in general, are special places – for me I see them as a gateway to exciting things. I like to imagine all the reunions and farewells that have taken place there over the years. St Pancras is where my friends and family from the north always arrive in to when they visit London, so it holds some really wonderful reunion memories for me. It is also the place where my husband proposed to me, and where we started and finished our honeymoon – so it has been an important place in my life!