Profile

Hi there 🙂 I’m Jess (people only call me Jessica when I’m in trouble!), I’m 27 and I live near London with my fiancé. I wish we were also able to have a cat, but unfortunately we don’t have one yet! On the weekends I usually go for walks in the park, see my nephew, or play some kind of board/video game with my fiancé 🙂 recently we’ve been playing a lot of Tears of the Kingdom! I’ve never played a Zelda game before, and it’s so much fun! Some of my other hobbies include board games, photography, and reading. I love to listen to music; recently I’ve gotten super into K-Pop, so I’m usually listening to that. I know some people find it cringe, I think it’s great! And if we were all the same, the world would be a really boring place, so don’t be afraid to be passionate!  I used to do a lot of musical theatre (acting, dancing and singing), and when I was younger I wanted to be a singer – I even auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent once! But considering you never saw me on the telly, you can guess how well that went!

One interesting fact about me is that I have a condition called Joint Hypermobility Syndrome. It basically means that all of my joints are a bit broken and are double-jointed, so I can do some really weird bendy tricks. Perhaps if a career in science doesn’t work out I could be a contortionist…?

I’m currently working as an Assistant Editor at The Lancet. It publishes a lot of scientific research from loads of different areas across medicine, including psychology and neurology. My job is to look at other scientists research and get it ready to be published for the world to read. That means making sure that their science is right (making sure that they’re talking about the right theories and that their maths adds up) but also making sure that everything is spelt right and their sentences make sense. I love being able to read all the new emerging research, and be on the frontlines of new medical and psychological discoveries!

I’m also finishing my PhD in Psychology, which basically means I’m doing research on a really specific question because people don’t know what the answer is. Once I’ve done all my research, you write it up as a ‘thesis’ to share with other scientists who are working in a similar area to you. The specific question I am looking at is, ‘what is the psychological impact of cancer in adolescents and young adult survivors’. So, in simple terms, how do teenagers and people in their early 20s deal with having cancer, and how do they manage when they are told they don’t have cancer anymore? I decided to do this because I lost 2 friends and 2 family members to cancer quite close together, and I found it really hard to deal with. And I thought ‘if I’m finding it this hard when its not even happening to me, how must people feel when they have cancer’? So I thought I’d go and find out!

I usually get up, get myself ready, and then settle at my computer. Since Covid, my job lets you work from home most of the time. I don’t mind, because the commute into London is crazy busy! But it can get kind of lonely… I usually have a cup of coffee first thing, but by the time I start my day it’s usually time for another one ☕️

I start my morning by checking my emails, and then look at my diary to see what I need to do today. I would honestly be lost without it! It takes me a while to get going in the mornings, so I start by doing the easy things: sending emails, answering emails from authors, looking to see which papers need to be edited and which are the most urgent… Then after lunch, I do the bigger jobs because my brain is more awake. This is when I do my more in-depth editing of research papers and working with other people in my office to make the papers the absolute best that they can be.

I usually finish work at about 6pm, and make dinner straight away because I am super hungry. I enjoy cooking, but usually by the end of the day I just want to make something quick and tasty. Depending on how tired I am, I might do some work on my PhD. I’m nearly finished with it now, I have to make some corrections but then I’ll finally be a doctor! But if I’m too tired, I just watch Netflix, listen to music, read, or play video games, then head to bed.