University of Exeter

Graduate Student, Psychology

PhD Researcher

Thesis Title: Attentional control systems in task switching

About

Hi,

I finished my undergraduate degree (BSc in Cognitive Science) at the University of Westminster, with first class honours, in 1998. For two years following this I worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of North London (where I helped out on the 'Introduction to Psychological Research Methods' module) and at the University of Westminster (where I helped out on the 'Introduction to Programming Methods' module).

Eventually I left these positions because I was offered a job by a colleague from the University of Westminster's Music department who I had been helping out with some statistics work. He had recently set up a rock and pop music examining board called Rockschool and I was hired as an Office Administrator where I ran the mailorder side of the business and helped to schedule exams all across the country.

Following a lovely holliday in Cornwall, my girlfriend and I decided to move to Exeter where I got a job at the Environment Agency building databases for the rivers department. Working alongside staff who were willing to drop everything immediately in order help you out played a significant part in shaping my work ethos of 'we are all in this together' and I have tried to offer as much support as possible to my colleagues ever since. While I was at the Environment Agency, they went through somewhat of an overhaul and, as I was not a geographer, I decided that it was time to leave.

That year I trained to be an ICT Teacher at South West Teacher Training which is based in a secondary school in Exeter. After I completed my training I spent a further five years working as a Teacher of ICT in local secondary schools, eventually spending just over two years as Teacher in Charge of ICT at Hollyrood Community College in Chard. During my short time at Hollyrood I turned a failing ICT department (they achieved <20% A*-C grades at GCSE the year before I started and neither staff nor students had much time for the department) into a successful one (the year I left, the ICT department achieved 76% A*-C grades at GCSE, staff felt comfortable enough to ask for help and students actually looked forward to their ICT lessons).

I had always planned to return to Psychology at some stage in my career and decided to train as a teacher of ICT because I knew that the skills I would learn in the process would help me with the research and lecturing in Psychology that would follow. It was not an easy decision to leave a job that I was good at, that I had prospects in and that I got a lot of pleasure from, but the call of my passions was too strong to resist. Now I have completed my Masters in Psychological Research Methods at Exeter University (I was awarded a Distinction, won the prize for the best overall performance during this programme and was nominated for a Dean's Commendation for exceptional performance) and am currently studying for my PhD here too. I have every confidence that I will complete my PhD and have my targets set on a Lecturing/Research career in the only subject that I have always loved.

Although I am interested in many areas of Psychology my current research focusses on tracing the time course of attention control through task switching paradigms and eye-tracking technology.

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