How do you describe your job when you meet people at a party?
I ask them what products they use and if they include the ones I have worked on or invented then tell them I do that, if not, I mention the brands I work on and that gets them excited about the amount of science that takes to make them happen
What is ‘cutting-edge’ about your work?
Often we have to use the latest developments in the scientific understanding of the subject we work on or its adjacent science areas to solve the problem at hand so that mining of solutions and the ‘synthesis’ of approaches is cutting edge stuff. Also a deeper understanding of the problem areas can be cutting-edge. Of course ideas that we generate to fulfil a consumer need and how we use science to formulate that need are most of the time cutting edge too
What are the biggest implications your work will/could have in the future?
Innovating to create wealth with less resources and less stress for our planet, so ‘formulate = less th<n Cfootprint ‘.
Describe some of the highlights of your average day.
Getting back on the bench to test the validity of new ideas, complete a patent specification, final touches to a paper or report, presenting my work to the team, managing a lunch time run with colleagues
Describe briefly how your career has progressed to date.
My career has developed along two parallel lines, one internal to me where new learning has widened my horizon and led to new ability and hence the sense of satisfaction from my job, and, one external where this has been recognized by colleagues, the business and the wider scientific community
How is your job cross-disciplinary?
Product innovation and implementation by necessity involves many disciplines involving, statistics, mathematics, physics, physical chemistry, chemistry, bio-chemistry, marketing, engineering, analytical techniques etc
How well is your job compensated? What is the starting salary for your field, and how much can this be expected to rise?
During my career of some 20 years my salary has increased by a factor of 3. I have no idea of current starting salaries, they have not kept up with times as is the endemic of the rest of the country, and interest rates are low though!
How do you see your field developing over the next 5-10 years?
The intellectual, creative and the ability to think of more novel and daring concepts both for meeting consumer needs, for better formulation and for scientific advance will grow and be valued. The implementation and the doing seems to be farmed out to China and India more and more for economic and efficiency reasons, a trend to be to be welcomed to force the growth of intellectual capital here
What’s the most unexpected thing about your job?
Do not know, shifting politics I suppose, but that is not unexpected!
What’s the biggest achievement of your career so far?
Generalising the Pascal triangle for NMR peak splitting of spins > ½.
