Being brought up in Belfast, coming to Ulster was an obvious choice. The journey began in 2021, at what was then the Jordanstown campus, with my integrated master’s degree in Mechatronic Engineering. It was in the second year of that course that we moved to the Belfast campus, where I still reside.

The idea of completing a PhD didn’t occur to me until 2023, when I had spoken to some lecturers about research pathways, and had been recommended to look into a PhD.

Outside of University, I enjoy music, sports and gaming. I also enjoying building LEGO sets in my free time, having a huge collection of bricks. This came in particularly handy during my master’s dissertation, which was on the use of LEGO to engage children in the primary to secondary transition period in STEM.

Having a background in Mechatronic Engineering, a lot of my interest lies in control systems and software solutions. From the more electronic side, this includes nano and micro scale devices, as well as larger control systems-based solutions, such as human-robot collaborative (COBOT) systems. On the other, more mechanical side, I have a great interest in polymer composites. This includes the usage of PEEK and other similar high-performance composites in a variety of applications, particularly medical. Another is the use of carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites to create solutions that are self-sensing, in that the material itself acts as a sensor.

I would like to learn more about how to utilise the skill set I have in MATLAB, Python and other relevant systems, as well as sharpening these skills to a higher level. I would also like to use my time during my initial training year to attend a variety of lectures and functions, to learn more about the workings of research, as well as gain awareness the recent and ongoing developments in the field of health technologies.