Profile

I joined National Grid on the graduate programme and spent 18 months working in different parts of our gas business before moving into my role as a network analyst. I spent 6 months working on one of our gas sites in the far North of Scotland before changing to a team that supports the national control room for gas where I focused on predicting what the supply and demand would be for the next day so that we could prepare the network.

Now in my role as network analyst we use a computer model of all the pipelines, valves and other equipment across the UK so that we can see whether we will be able to cope in future years as the amount of gas people need or the places we get the gas from changes. It involves lots of problem solving as the network is very interconnected and we’re affected by everything from the weather to world events.

My day varies a great deal depending what projects I’ve got going on as not all of them require analysis. There will usually be a mixture of some network analysis, writing or proof reading reports, meetings with my team and others that we work with, the occasional trip to a local school to talk with the students about careers or help with guided reading, catching up with people I’ve met in the past to stay in touch and working on little projects that will help my team to do our jobs more effectively. At the end of each day I take time to write up everything so that I remember who I met and where I can find any information I might need again.

The ScienceGrrl group is made up of women working in science and engineering keen to share their experiences and encourage other young women so the money would help us to develop some great resources and put on events for girls in the local area. I’d especially like to develop a game style activity which shows what goes on in the gas control room at National Grid and how interesting it can be.