Profile
Sam Smith
My CV
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Education:
Wanstead High School (left 2006), City University (Psychology – 2006-2009), University College London (MSc Health Psychology – 2009-2010), University College London (PhD Psychology – 2010-2013)
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Qualifications:
BSc, MSc, PhD, CPsychol, MBPss and I swam 100 metres without armbands once!
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Work History:
A terrible bar in Angel, University College London, Northwestern University in Chicago, Queen Mary University of London. I also worked at Harvard University for a bit last year.
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Current Job:
Cancer Research UK Postdoctoral Fellow
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I am a behavioural scientist, also known as a psychologist, with an interest in how humans behave. I am particularly interested in the behaviours that we do to maintain our health, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, eating fruit and vegetables and exercise. This isn’t because I’m really good at doing these things myself (!), but because these behaviours are linked with health outcomes, such as cancer. We think that up to 40% of all cancers that people get are because of the way we live our lives and the environments we live in. If we could change all those things, we could stop up to 135,000 cancers from ever happening. This is an ambitious goal, but it’s why I get out of bed in the morning!
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My Typical Day:
Entering and analysing data, discussing findings with colleagues, writing reports and presenting to big audiences.
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This is a tough one, because my day varies quite a lot. Some of the things that I regularly do are to enter and analyse data, usually from questionnaires returned to me by members of the public. We also collect information using methods like one-to-one interviews, focus groups and online forums; anywhere where people are discussing their behaviour is a place I like to collect data from! So my day may be speaking with people and trying to understand what they think about a particular topic. Because we get so much information, I can’t always make sense of it by myself. So I will also spend time speaking with colleagues about my findings, many of whom have expertise in specialist areas such as statistics, experiments and genetics. Scary stuff if you ask me, so I’m glad we can work together. When we get to a stage where we are pretty confident that our findings are accurate, we will present the new information at small and large meetings of colleagues from other departments and universities. This can be quite intimidating, but also a lot of fun. Particularly if your new findings are interesting and exciting! I usually give about one presentation a week.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
The money will contribute to me creating videos for the website healthtalk.org
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Passionate, enthusiastic and focussed
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really – the usual antics of a classroom
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Daft punk
What's your favourite food?
I lived on Italian food as a kid
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) Concentrate on one thing at a time! 2) Celebrate accomplishments better. 3) Enjoy it when things are going well, and don’t be stressed when things aren’t!
Tell us a joke.
I apologise in advance…A piece of string walked into the bar and asked for a pint of beer. The barman refused, and said, ‘we don’t serve pieces of string in this bar’. So the piece of string asked to use the bathroom before he left. He looked in the mirror, tied himself in a loop and ruffled his hair a little. He went back to the bar and asked for a pint of beer. The barman replied, ‘aren’t you that piece of string I just threw out of here?’ The piece of string replied, ‘no, i’m a frayed knot’
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