Profile
Neil Keddie
Thrilled to have won the Molecule Zone! Thank you all for you wonderful questions over the last two weeks.
My CV
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Education:
The Glasgow Academy (1994-2000), University of St Andrews (MChem and PhD, 2000-2009)
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Qualifications:
Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry and Industrial Placement (MChem) and PhD in Sugar Chemistry
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Work History:
Lead Discovery Chemist (Organon), Postdoc and Teaching Fellow (University of St Andrews), Freelance Editor (Royal Society of Chemistry), Kite Seller (Wind and Water) and Outdoor Equipment Retail (Tiso)
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Current Job:
Organofluorine Postdoctoral Researcher and Teaching Fellow at the University of St Andrews
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About Me:
I’m a Researcher and Teaching Fellow at St Andrews, which means I spend about half of my time teaching chemistry to students (in small groups and in the teaching lab), and the other half in the lab making new functional molecules (my favourite bit!)
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Read more
I live in Fife with my wife, 3 kids, 2 cats and a dog. We’ve lived in Fife since I met my wife at University in St Andrews (a few years ago) and decided to stay in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland. I was lucky enough to do most of my PhD at St Andrews too, before spending 4 months at the University of Oxford to finish my lab work, as my supervisor had moved down there. My PhD work was making a modified type of a special sugar called inositol that your body produces to pass signals around in your cells. We were trying to make molecules that could turn this signalling on and off (like a lightswitch), so we could study how it works.
After my PhD I applied for lots of jobs, but the first I was offered was back at St Andrews doing something totally different: fluorine chemistry. I spent several years making the most polar saturated molecule in the world (that’s still my record, btw), then my role changed to include teaching students at all levels of their degree too. I’ve done this for the last 4 years and still love it.
In my spare time, you’ll find me outside with my family and the dogs going for walks, at my boy’s rugby training, working in the garden and just having fun. I love to cook, especially BBQ and pizza made in my own wood-fired oven (yummy!).
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My Typical Day:
Get up, feed cats, puppy and my kids, head to work, get some chemistry going in the lab, teach some small group classes, more chemistry in the lab, sometimes teaching students how to do experiments in the teaching labs, head home, bedtime for the kids, cook dinner with my wife then chill out (or sometimes work on some freelance editing too). In short: Eat, Sleep, Chemistry, Repeat.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
If I win the money, I would put it all into an outreach programme called ChemBus. We want to extend the number of schools we can visit each time we run ChemBus and to develop a new hands-on experiment for our 2018-19 visits.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Motivated Chemist (and) Dad
What did you want to be after you left school?
An Oceanographer – I always thought combining science and working the sea would be a cool thing to do – I loved scuba diving too, which helped
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Pretty much never – I was a bit of a geek really, and only occasionally ended up in trouble for mucking about
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Röyksopp and I like a lot of other electronica bands too
What's your favourite food?
Pizza (preferably made from my own wood-fired oven)
Tell us a joke.
I once told a Chemistry joke... but it didn't get a reaction.
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