Profile

Hi, my name is Catherine and I live in Newcastle! I studied for my doctorate at the University of Exeter, and recently moved to Northumbria University to work as a researcher.

In my spare time, I like to go rock climbing 🧗, do yoga🧘, drink coffee ☕, and eat pizza 🍕. My favourite type of pizza is Texas BBQ 🍕I love plants and have two cacti on my desk called Fergus and Fiona 🌵.

My pronouns are she/her.

Dementia is a health condition that can make it difficult for people to think and manage their lives. I look at how people with dementia use social media to feel better about themselves. My work involves travelling all around the UK and listening to the stories of different people with dementia. I have met many interesting people and visited a lot of different places in the UK! I then use scientific analyses to look for patterns in these stories. This involves lots of cutting, sticking, and highlighting!

When I’m not travelling to speak to people, I spend a lot of time reading about new scientific research. Most of my work time is also spent writing about my scientific findings. When I’m not writing about my research, I am often speaking about my research at conferences and events! Here is a photo of me at an event where I talked about my research in the city to members of the public. It was a sunny day and a lot of fun speaking to lots of different people!

I get up nice and early at 7:30am, and arrive at my office at 9:00am. On a typical day, I will interview people for my research and ask them to tell me stories about their lives. I often attend talks by other scientists and learn about the latest scientific findings! Most of my days are spent writing about my work so I can publish my scientific findings and share it with fellow scientists and other groups of people.