Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #youngscientistnetworking
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It’s my turn to contribute to #YoungScientistNetworking (organised by @QuantumTessera), so here’s the (convoluted) story of how I muddled my way to working at an exam board, running a successful chemistry website (@compoundchem) and being a published author (1/33) 
Chemistry was a part of my life from an early age. My Dad was the first in the family to go to university, got a doctorate in chemistry, then jetted off to the US for a few years in the 80s to work on astrochemistry at NASA. Which, as a kid, sounded pretty awesome. (2/33)
My parents had moved back to England by the time I was born, and I grew up in Dorchester, Dorset (on the bottom bit of England for those who don’t know their English counties). I was into drawing, writing short stories, and birdwatching. Not one of the cool kids. (3/33)
As part of #YoungScientistNetworking (thanks to @QuantumTessera for organizing this) I'm going to share my career journey; this will be a (very) long thread & personal in parts in an attempt to put some of the decisions into context (1/n)
I did pretty well in high school, but the last few years were tough; my Dad died when I was 15 and, at 17, I broke my leg in a car accident (it's all good now & I wasn't the driver BTW). But thinking long & hard about my future just didn't seem like a priority at the time (2/n)
I applied to universities but was not able to visit them (hard with a broken leg), so I picked something I thought I would enjoy based on my A-levels (non-Brits might need to Google that). I ended up at The University of Birmingham doing a Physics & Astrophysics degree (3/n)
Authored this thread in support of #YoungScientistNetworking, to let you know a little more about my training and career path. I’m writing in free form, stream of consciousness, so feel free to reach out with specific questions or missing links in the 🧵1/..
I grew up in a small border town in Ontario, Canada on the St-Lawrence river. I am the youngest of 5 kids. My 1st language is French. Didn’t speak English until around grade 2. As a child I was interested in how stuff worked and asked a lot of questions. 2/..
I've been asked to talk about how I ended up doing what I'm doing for #YoungScientistNetworking, so here's the story! I've been at this a while, so it's sort of a long tale by now. (1/20)
I grew up in a small town in NE Arkansas, and was always interested in all sorts of science (astronomy, biology, chemistry and more). I knew that my path wa going to take me somewhere else, but I had no idea where. (2/20)
When I got to college, I wasn't even sure I would go into the sciences! I had always liked history and literature too, but I decided it would be be easier to have my own library at home than to have my own lab, and became a chemistry major. (3/20)
I’ve been asked to make a post about my twisty-turny career for #YoungScientistNetworking, because not all PhDs end up in academia. So, here goes… 🧵
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I finished my chemistry PhD in 2000, at Nottingham University (home of @periodicvideos!). I briefly contemplated working for Bio-Rad, because I’d done a lot of infrared spec, but instead I joined UoN’s web design team (it was a pretty new thing, then)
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After two years I decided I missed the science. So I left to complete a teacher-training course. I’d go on to teach secondary science, particularly chemistry, on and off for nearly twenty years
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