Profile

I’m Matthew and i’m a PhD student (Trainee scientist) at the University of Reading. When i am not at work i love the outdoors and i love travelling and visiting my friends from all over the UK.

Driving cars produces pollutants of which probably the most well known is Carbon dioxide (CO2). One of the groups of pollutants, Nitrous oxides, can turn into another pollutant called ozone (O3) when it comes into contact with sunlight.

Bee’s use the smell of a plant to find the plant and pollinate it giving us fruit like raspberries. The plants smell is made up of lots of different chemicals and some of these chemicals can react with Ozone (O3) and turn into new chemicals. This may be changing the smell of the plant and my job is to work out both how the smell changes and also if this is a problem for the bee’s.

In my work no two days are the same. I get up about 8am and head to work for 9am. I usually try and plan my day in advance so when i arrive i am able to do my first task of the day which could be anything from fixing machinery in the lab, collecting data, doing paperwork to having meetings with my bosses. I usually break for 30 minutes  about lunch then head back to work and finish about 5pm. I then like to go home, make some food, meet friends and then finish the day off with some netflix.