Profile

My name is Alistair and I am 30 years old. I live in Edinburgh and work at the University of Edinburgh. I am also originally from Edinburgh. I went to school and University in Edinburgh too. You can tell from the last two sentences that I quite like the city I live in.

I enjoy making/hacking and can be found spending my spare time repairing old and new tech in my house and working on projects, often ones which never seem to be quite finished and can be modified indefinitely.

I am dyslexic and so when having to type documents for work or even things as simple as describing myself I have a lot of editing to do before it is ever submitted. Even then things aren’t guaranteed to be right (may have got my supervisors name wrong first time I wrote a paper with him).

To exercise I am a keen squash and badminton player often finding it the best way to relax after a long day of engineering, this paired with walking my dog (cross dalmatian/spaniel) keeps me relatively fit.

Life as a research associate is always busy but always interesting.

As I said morning coffee is a must for me, this is then followed swiftly by looking at my to-do lists and emails and generally adding lots to the to-do lists (great way to organise your head). After that things can vary, sometimes I am in the lab fabricating new parts for our robots which could be its electronics, mechanical parts or soft sections.

Other times I will be at my desk designing new systems, or reviewing the current state of the art in the area I am working (currently its creatures that live deep in the sea and how I can make robots like them).

I am starting to teach courses at the university and so I will have to plan for the lectures as well as teaching them.

Often I travel to other universities to work with them on projects or take part in meetings.

Normally fit in lunch and more coffee throughout the day and finish after 6.00pm as I like to start a bit later in the day.